CHAPTER XII. OF THE MONASTERY OF ST. BARSAMO ON THE BORDERS OF TAURIS.
On the borders of (the territory of) Tauris there is a monastery called after Saint Barsamo, a most devout Saint. There is an Abbot, with many Monks, who wear a habit like that of the Carmelites, and these to avoid idleness are continually knitting woollen girdles. These they place upon the altar of St. Barsamo during the service, and when they go begging about the province (like the Brethren of the Holy Spirit) they present them to their friends and to the gentlefolks, for they are excellent things to remove bodily pain; wherefore every one is devoutly eager to possess them.[NOTE 1]
NOTE 1.—Barsauma ("The Son of Fasting") was a native of Samosata, and an Archimandrite of the Asiatic Church. He opposed the Nestorians, but became himself still more obnoxious to the orthodox as a spreader of the Monophysite Heresy. He was condemned by the Council of Chalcedon (451), and died in 458. He is a Saint of fame in the Jacobite and Armenian Churches, and several monasteries were dedicated to him; but by far the most celebrated, and doubtless that meant here, was near Malatia. It must have been famous even among the Mahomedans, for it has an article in Bákúi's Geog. Dictionary. (Dír-Barsúma, see N. et Ext. II. 515.) This monastery possessed relics of Barsauma and of St. Peter, and was sometimes the residence of the Jacobite Patriarch and the meeting-place of the Synods.
A more marvellous story than Marco's is related of this monastery by Vincent of Beauvais: "There is in that kingdom (Armenia) a place called St. Brassamus, at which there is a monastery for 300 monks. And 'tis said that if ever an enemy attacks it, the defences of the monastery move of themselves, and shoot back the shot against the besieger."
(Assemani in vol. ii. passim; Tournefort, III. 260; Vin. Bell. Spec. Historiale, Lib. XXX. c. cxlii.; see also Mar. Sanut. III. xi. c. 16.)
The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello of
Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
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CHAPTER XIII. OF THE GREAT COUNTRY OF PERSIA; WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE THREE KINGS.
Persia is a great country, which was in old times very illustrious and powerful; but now the Tartars have wasted and destroyed it.
In Persia is the city of SABA, from which the Three Magi set out when they went to worship Jesus Christ; and in this city they are buried, in three very large and beautiful monuments, side by side. And above them there is a square building, carefully kept. The bodies are still entire, with the hair and beard remaining. One of these was called Jaspar, the second Melchior, and the third Balthasar. Messer Marco Polo asked a great many questions of the people of that city as to those Three Magi, but never one could he find that knew aught of the matter, except that these were three kings who were buried there in days of old. However, at a place three days' journey distant he heard of what I am going to tell you. He found a village there which goes by the name of CALA ATAPERISTAN,[NOTE 1] which is as much as to say, "The Castle of the Fire-worshippers." And the name is rightly applied, for the people there do worship fire, and I will tell you why.
They relate that in old times three kings of that country went away to worship a Prophet that was born, and they carried with them three manner of offerings, Gold, and Frankincense, and Myrrh; in order to ascertain whether that Prophet were God, or an earthly King, or a Physician. For, said they, if he take the Gold, then he is an earthly King; if he take the Incense he is God; if he take the Myrrh he is a Physician.
So it came to pass when they had come to the place where the Child was born, the youngest of the Three Kings went in first, and found the Child apparently just of his own age; so he went forth again marvelling greatly. The middle one entered next, and like the first he found the Child seemingly of his own age; so he also went forth again and marvelled greatly. Lastly, the eldest went in, and as it had befallen the other two, so it befell him. And he went forth very pensive. And when the three had rejoined one another, each told what he had seen; and then they all marvelled the more. So they agreed to go in all three together, and on doing so they beheld the Child with the appearance of its actual age, to wit, some thirteen days.[NOTE 2] Then they adored, and presented their Gold and Incense and Myrrh. And the Child took all the three offerings, and then gave them a small closed box; whereupon the Kings departed to return into their own land.
NOTE 1.—Kala' Atishparastán, meaning as in the text. (Marsden.)
NOTE 2.—According to the Collectanea ascribed to Bede, Melchior was a hoary old man; Balthazar in his prime, with a beard; Gaspar young and beardless. (Inchofer, Tres Magi Evangelici, Romae, 1639.)
Persia is a great country, which was in old times very illustrious and powerful; but now the Tartars have wasted and destroyed it.
In Persia is the city of SABA, from which the Three Magi set out when they went to worship Jesus Christ; and in this city they are buried, in three very large and beautiful monuments, side by side. And above them there is a square building, carefully kept. The bodies are still entire, with the hair and beard remaining. One of these was called Jaspar, the second Melchior, and the third Balthasar. Messer Marco Polo asked a great many questions of the people of that city as to those Three Magi, but never one could he find that knew aught of the matter, except that these were three kings who were buried there in days of old. However, at a place three days' journey distant he heard of what I am going to tell you. He found a village there which goes by the name of CALA ATAPERISTAN,[NOTE 1] which is as much as to say, "The Castle of the Fire-worshippers." And the name is rightly applied, for the people there do worship fire, and I will tell you why.
They relate that in old times three kings of that country went away to worship a Prophet that was born, and they carried with them three manner of offerings, Gold, and Frankincense, and Myrrh; in order to ascertain whether that Prophet were God, or an earthly King, or a Physician. For, said they, if he take the Gold, then he is an earthly King; if he take the Incense he is God; if he take the Myrrh he is a Physician.
So it came to pass when they had come to the place where the Child was born, the youngest of the Three Kings went in first, and found the Child apparently just of his own age; so he went forth again marvelling greatly. The middle one entered next, and like the first he found the Child seemingly of his own age; so he also went forth again and marvelled greatly. Lastly, the eldest went in, and as it had befallen the other two, so it befell him. And he went forth very pensive. And when the three had rejoined one another, each told what he had seen; and then they all marvelled the more. So they agreed to go in all three together, and on doing so they beheld the Child with the appearance of its actual age, to wit, some thirteen days.[NOTE 2] Then they adored, and presented their Gold and Incense and Myrrh. And the Child took all the three offerings, and then gave them a small closed box; whereupon the Kings departed to return into their own land.
NOTE 1.—Kala' Atishparastán, meaning as in the text. (Marsden.)
NOTE 2.—According to the Collectanea ascribed to Bede, Melchior was a hoary old man; Balthazar in his prime, with a beard; Gaspar young and beardless. (Inchofer, Tres Magi Evangelici, Romae, 1639.)
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
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CHAPTER XIV. WHAT BEFELL WHEN THE THREE KINGS RETURNED TO THEIR OWN COUNTRY.
And when they had ridden many days they said they would see what the Child had given them. So they opened the little box, and inside it they found a stone. On seeing this they began to wonder what this might be that the Child had given them, and what was the import thereof. Now the signification was this: when they presented their offerings, the Child had accepted all three, and when they saw that they had said within themselves that He was the True God, and the True King, and the True Physician.[NOTE 1] And what the gift of the stone implied was that this Faith which had begun in them should abide firm as a rock. For He well knew what was in their thoughts. Howbeit, they had no understanding at all of this signification of the gift of the stone; so they cast it into a well. Then straightway a fire from Heaven descended into that well wherein the stone had been cast.
And when the Three Kings beheld this marvel they were sore amazed, and it greatly repented them that they had cast away the stone; for well they then perceived that it had a great and holy meaning. So they took of that fire, and carried it into their own country, and placed it in a rich and beautiful church. And there the people keep it continually burning, and worship it as a god, and all the sacrifices they offer are kindled with that fire. And if ever the fire becomes extinct they go to other cities round about where the same faith is held, and obtain of that fire from them, and carry it to the church. And this is the reason why the people of this country worship fire. They will often go ten days' journey to get of that fire.[NOTE 2]
Such then was the story told by the people of that Castle to Messer Marco Polo; they declared to him for a truth that such was their history, and that one of the three kings was of the city called SABA, and the second of AVA, and the third of that very Castle where they still worship fire, with the people of all the country round about.[NOTE 3]
Having related this story, I will now tell you of the different provinces of Persia, and their peculiarities.
NOTE 1.—"Mire." This was in old French the popular word for a Leech; the politer word was Physicien. (N. et E. V. 505.)
Chrysostom says that the Gold, Myrrh, and Frankincense were mystic gifts indicating King, Man, God; and this interpretation was the usual one. Thus Prudentius:—
And the Paris Liturgy:—
And in the "Hymns, Ancient and Modern":—
NOTE 2.—"Feruntque (Magi), si justum est credi, etiam ignem caelitus iapsum apud se sempiternis foculis custodire, cujus portionem exiguam, ut faustam praeisse quondam Asiaticis Regibus dicunt." (Ammian. Marcell. XXIII. 6.)
NOTE 3.—Saba or Sava still exists as SÁVAH, about 50 miles S.W. of Tehrân. It is described by Mr. Consul Abbott, who visited it in 1849, as the most ruinous town he had ever seen, and as containing about 1000 families. The people retain a tradition, mentioned by Hamd Allah Mastaufi, that the city stood on the shores of a Lake which dried up miraculously at the birth of Mahomed. Sávah is said to have possessed one of the greatest Libraries in the East, until its destruction by the Mongols on their first invasion of Persia. Both Sávah and Ávah (or Ábah) are mentioned by Abulfeda as cities of Jibal. We are told that the two cities were always at loggerheads, the former being Sunni and the latter Shiya. [We read in the Travels of Thévenot, a most intelligent traveller, "qu'il n'a rien érit de l'ancienne ville de Sava qu'il trouva sur son chemin, et où il a marqué lui-même que son esprit de curiosité l'abandonna." (Voyages, éd. 1727, vol. v. p. 343. He died a few days after at Miana, in Armenia, 28th November, 1667). (MS. Note.—H. Y.)]
As regards the position of AVAH, Abbott says that a village still stands upon the site, about 16 miles S.S.E. of Sávah. He did not visit it, but took a bearing to it. He was told there was a mound there on which formerly stood a Gueber Castle. At Sávah he could find no trace of Marco Polo's legend. Chardin, in whose time Sávah was not quite so far gone to decay, heard of an alleged tomb of Samuel, at 4 leagues from the city. This is alluded to by Hamd Allah.
Keith Johnston and Kiepert put Ávah some 60 miles W.N.W. of Sávah, on the road between Kazvin and Hamadan. There seems to be some great mistake here.
Friar Odoric puts the locality of the Magi at Kashan, though one of the versions of Ramusio and the Palatine MS. (see Cordier's Odoric, pp. xcv. and 41 of his Itinerary), perhaps corrected in this, puts it at Saba—H. Y. and H. C.
We have no means of fixing the Kala' Atishparastán. It is probable, however, that the story was picked up on the homeward journey, and as it seems to be implied that this castle was reached three days after leaving Sávah, I should look for it between Sávah and Abher. Ruins to which the name Kila'-i-Gabr, "Gueber Castle," attaches are common in Persia.
As regards the Legend itself, which shows such a curious mixture of Christian and Parsi elements, it is related some 350 years earlier by Mas'údi: "In the Province of Fars they tell you of a Well called the Well of Fire, near which there was a temple built. When the Messiah was born the King Koresh sent three messengers to him, the first of whom carried a bag of Incense, the second a bag of Myrrh, and the third a bag of Gold. They set out under the guidance of the Star which the king had described to them, arrived in Syria, and found the Messiah with Mary His Mother. This story of the three messengers is related by the Christians with sundry exaggerations; it is also found in the Gospel. Thus they say that the Star appeared to Koresh at the moment of Christ's birth; that it went on when the messengers went on, and stopped when they stopped. More ample particulars will be found in our Historical Annals, where we have given the versions of this legend as current among the Guebers and among the Christians. It will be seen that Mary gave the king's messengers a round loaf, and this, after different adventures, they hid under a rock in the province of Fars. The loaf disappeared underground, and there they dug a well, on which they beheld two columns of fire to start up flaming at the surface; in short, all the details of the legend will be found in our Annals." The Editors say that Mas'údi had carried the story to Fars by mistaking Shíz in Azerbaiján (the Atropatenian Ecbatana of Sir H. Rawlinson) for Shiraz. A rudiment of the same legend is contained in the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy. This says that Mary gave the Magi one of the bands in which the Child was swathed. On their return they cast this into their sacred fire; though wrapt in the flame it remained unhurt.
We may add that there was a Christian tradition that the Star descended into a well between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Gregory of Tours also relates that in a certain well, at Bethlehem, from which Mary had drawn water, the Star was sometimes seen, by devout pilgrims who looked carefully for it, to pass from one side to the other. But only such as merited the boon could see it.
(See Abbott in J. R. G. S. XXV. 4-6; Assemani, III. pt. 2, 750; Chardin, II. 407; N. et Ext. II. 465; Dict. de la Perse, 2, 56, 298; Cathay, p. 51; Mas'udi, IV. 80; Greg. Turon. Libri Miraculorum, Paris, 1858, I. 8.)
Several of the fancies that legend has attached to the brief story of the Magi in St. Matthew, such as the royal dignity of the persons; their location, now in Arabia, now (as here) at Saba in Persia, and again (as in Hayton and the Catalan Map) in Tarsia or Eastern Turkestan; the notion that one of them was a Negro, and so on, probably grew out of the arbitrary application of passages in the Old Testament, such as: "Venient legati ex Aegypto: AETHIOPIA praevenit manus ejus Deo" (Ps. lxviii. 31). This produced the Negro who usually is painted as one of the Three. "Reges THARSIS et Insulae munera offerent: Reges ARABUM et SABA dona adducent" (lxxii. 10). This made the Three into Kings, and fixed them in Tarsia, Arabia, and Sava. "Mundatio Camelorum operiet te, dromedarii Madian et EPHA: omnes de SABA venient aurum et thus deferentes et laudem Domino annunciantes" (Is. lx. 6). Here were Ava and Sava coupled, as well as the gold and frankincense.
One form of the old Church Legend was that the Three were buried at Sessania Adrumetorum (Hadhramaut) in Arabia, whence the Empress Helena had the bodies conveyed to Constantinople, [and later to Milan in the time of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus. After the fall of Milan (1162), Frederic Barbarossa gave them to Archbishop Rainald of Dassel (1159-1167), who carried them to Cologne (23rd July, 1164).—H. C.]
The names given by Polo, Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, have been accepted from an old date by the Roman Church; but an abundant variety of other names has been assigned to them. Hyde quotes a Syriac writer who calls them Aruphon, Hurmon, and Tachshesh, but says that some call them Gudphorbus, Artachshasht, and Labudo; whilst in Persian they were termed Amad, Zad-Amad, Drust-Amad, i.e. Venit, Cito Venit, Sincerus Venit. Some called them in Greek, Apellius, Amerus, and Damascus, and in Hebrew, Magaloth, Galgalath, and Saracia, but otherwise Ator, Sator, and Petatoros! The Armenian Church used the same names as the Roman, but in Chaldee they were Kaghba, Badadilma, Badada Kharida. (Hyde, Rel. Vet. Pers. 382-383; Inchofer, ut supra; J. As. sér. VI. IX. 160.)
[Just before going to press we have read Major Sykes' new book on Persia. Major Sykes (ch. xxiii.) does not believe that Marco visited Baghdád, and he thinks that the Venetians entered Persia near Tabriz, and travelled to Sultania, Kashán, and Yezd. Thence they proceeded to Kerman and Hormuz. We shall discuss this question in the Introduction.—H. C.]
And when they had ridden many days they said they would see what the Child had given them. So they opened the little box, and inside it they found a stone. On seeing this they began to wonder what this might be that the Child had given them, and what was the import thereof. Now the signification was this: when they presented their offerings, the Child had accepted all three, and when they saw that they had said within themselves that He was the True God, and the True King, and the True Physician.[NOTE 1] And what the gift of the stone implied was that this Faith which had begun in them should abide firm as a rock. For He well knew what was in their thoughts. Howbeit, they had no understanding at all of this signification of the gift of the stone; so they cast it into a well. Then straightway a fire from Heaven descended into that well wherein the stone had been cast.
And when the Three Kings beheld this marvel they were sore amazed, and it greatly repented them that they had cast away the stone; for well they then perceived that it had a great and holy meaning. So they took of that fire, and carried it into their own country, and placed it in a rich and beautiful church. And there the people keep it continually burning, and worship it as a god, and all the sacrifices they offer are kindled with that fire. And if ever the fire becomes extinct they go to other cities round about where the same faith is held, and obtain of that fire from them, and carry it to the church. And this is the reason why the people of this country worship fire. They will often go ten days' journey to get of that fire.[NOTE 2]
Such then was the story told by the people of that Castle to Messer Marco Polo; they declared to him for a truth that such was their history, and that one of the three kings was of the city called SABA, and the second of AVA, and the third of that very Castle where they still worship fire, with the people of all the country round about.[NOTE 3]
Having related this story, I will now tell you of the different provinces of Persia, and their peculiarities.
NOTE 1.—"Mire." This was in old French the popular word for a Leech; the politer word was Physicien. (N. et E. V. 505.)
Chrysostom says that the Gold, Myrrh, and Frankincense were mystic gifts indicating King, Man, God; and this interpretation was the usual one. Thus Prudentius:—
"Regem, Deumque adnunciant
Thesaurus et fragrans odor
Thuris Sabaei, at myrrheus
Pulvis sepulchrum praedocet." (Hymnus Epiphanius.)
And the Paris Liturgy:—
"Offert Aurum Caritas,
Et Myrrham Austeritas,
Et Thus Desiderium.
Auro Rex agnoscitur,
Homo Myrrha, colitur
Thure Deus gentium."
And in the "Hymns, Ancient and Modern":—
"Sacred gifts of mystic meaning:
Incense doth their God disclose,
Gold the King of Kings proclaimeth,
Myrrh His sepulchre foreshows."
NOTE 2.—"Feruntque (Magi), si justum est credi, etiam ignem caelitus iapsum apud se sempiternis foculis custodire, cujus portionem exiguam, ut faustam praeisse quondam Asiaticis Regibus dicunt." (Ammian. Marcell. XXIII. 6.)
NOTE 3.—Saba or Sava still exists as SÁVAH, about 50 miles S.W. of Tehrân. It is described by Mr. Consul Abbott, who visited it in 1849, as the most ruinous town he had ever seen, and as containing about 1000 families. The people retain a tradition, mentioned by Hamd Allah Mastaufi, that the city stood on the shores of a Lake which dried up miraculously at the birth of Mahomed. Sávah is said to have possessed one of the greatest Libraries in the East, until its destruction by the Mongols on their first invasion of Persia. Both Sávah and Ávah (or Ábah) are mentioned by Abulfeda as cities of Jibal. We are told that the two cities were always at loggerheads, the former being Sunni and the latter Shiya. [We read in the Travels of Thévenot, a most intelligent traveller, "qu'il n'a rien érit de l'ancienne ville de Sava qu'il trouva sur son chemin, et où il a marqué lui-même que son esprit de curiosité l'abandonna." (Voyages, éd. 1727, vol. v. p. 343. He died a few days after at Miana, in Armenia, 28th November, 1667). (MS. Note.—H. Y.)]
As regards the position of AVAH, Abbott says that a village still stands upon the site, about 16 miles S.S.E. of Sávah. He did not visit it, but took a bearing to it. He was told there was a mound there on which formerly stood a Gueber Castle. At Sávah he could find no trace of Marco Polo's legend. Chardin, in whose time Sávah was not quite so far gone to decay, heard of an alleged tomb of Samuel, at 4 leagues from the city. This is alluded to by Hamd Allah.
Keith Johnston and Kiepert put Ávah some 60 miles W.N.W. of Sávah, on the road between Kazvin and Hamadan. There seems to be some great mistake here.
Friar Odoric puts the locality of the Magi at Kashan, though one of the versions of Ramusio and the Palatine MS. (see Cordier's Odoric, pp. xcv. and 41 of his Itinerary), perhaps corrected in this, puts it at Saba—H. Y. and H. C.
We have no means of fixing the Kala' Atishparastán. It is probable, however, that the story was picked up on the homeward journey, and as it seems to be implied that this castle was reached three days after leaving Sávah, I should look for it between Sávah and Abher. Ruins to which the name Kila'-i-Gabr, "Gueber Castle," attaches are common in Persia.
As regards the Legend itself, which shows such a curious mixture of Christian and Parsi elements, it is related some 350 years earlier by Mas'údi: "In the Province of Fars they tell you of a Well called the Well of Fire, near which there was a temple built. When the Messiah was born the King Koresh sent three messengers to him, the first of whom carried a bag of Incense, the second a bag of Myrrh, and the third a bag of Gold. They set out under the guidance of the Star which the king had described to them, arrived in Syria, and found the Messiah with Mary His Mother. This story of the three messengers is related by the Christians with sundry exaggerations; it is also found in the Gospel. Thus they say that the Star appeared to Koresh at the moment of Christ's birth; that it went on when the messengers went on, and stopped when they stopped. More ample particulars will be found in our Historical Annals, where we have given the versions of this legend as current among the Guebers and among the Christians. It will be seen that Mary gave the king's messengers a round loaf, and this, after different adventures, they hid under a rock in the province of Fars. The loaf disappeared underground, and there they dug a well, on which they beheld two columns of fire to start up flaming at the surface; in short, all the details of the legend will be found in our Annals." The Editors say that Mas'údi had carried the story to Fars by mistaking Shíz in Azerbaiján (the Atropatenian Ecbatana of Sir H. Rawlinson) for Shiraz. A rudiment of the same legend is contained in the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy. This says that Mary gave the Magi one of the bands in which the Child was swathed. On their return they cast this into their sacred fire; though wrapt in the flame it remained unhurt.
We may add that there was a Christian tradition that the Star descended into a well between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Gregory of Tours also relates that in a certain well, at Bethlehem, from which Mary had drawn water, the Star was sometimes seen, by devout pilgrims who looked carefully for it, to pass from one side to the other. But only such as merited the boon could see it.
(See Abbott in J. R. G. S. XXV. 4-6; Assemani, III. pt. 2, 750; Chardin, II. 407; N. et Ext. II. 465; Dict. de la Perse, 2, 56, 298; Cathay, p. 51; Mas'udi, IV. 80; Greg. Turon. Libri Miraculorum, Paris, 1858, I. 8.)
Several of the fancies that legend has attached to the brief story of the Magi in St. Matthew, such as the royal dignity of the persons; their location, now in Arabia, now (as here) at Saba in Persia, and again (as in Hayton and the Catalan Map) in Tarsia or Eastern Turkestan; the notion that one of them was a Negro, and so on, probably grew out of the arbitrary application of passages in the Old Testament, such as: "Venient legati ex Aegypto: AETHIOPIA praevenit manus ejus Deo" (Ps. lxviii. 31). This produced the Negro who usually is painted as one of the Three. "Reges THARSIS et Insulae munera offerent: Reges ARABUM et SABA dona adducent" (lxxii. 10). This made the Three into Kings, and fixed them in Tarsia, Arabia, and Sava. "Mundatio Camelorum operiet te, dromedarii Madian et EPHA: omnes de SABA venient aurum et thus deferentes et laudem Domino annunciantes" (Is. lx. 6). Here were Ava and Sava coupled, as well as the gold and frankincense.
One form of the old Church Legend was that the Three were buried at Sessania Adrumetorum (Hadhramaut) in Arabia, whence the Empress Helena had the bodies conveyed to Constantinople, [and later to Milan in the time of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus. After the fall of Milan (1162), Frederic Barbarossa gave them to Archbishop Rainald of Dassel (1159-1167), who carried them to Cologne (23rd July, 1164).—H. C.]
The names given by Polo, Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, have been accepted from an old date by the Roman Church; but an abundant variety of other names has been assigned to them. Hyde quotes a Syriac writer who calls them Aruphon, Hurmon, and Tachshesh, but says that some call them Gudphorbus, Artachshasht, and Labudo; whilst in Persian they were termed Amad, Zad-Amad, Drust-Amad, i.e. Venit, Cito Venit, Sincerus Venit. Some called them in Greek, Apellius, Amerus, and Damascus, and in Hebrew, Magaloth, Galgalath, and Saracia, but otherwise Ator, Sator, and Petatoros! The Armenian Church used the same names as the Roman, but in Chaldee they were Kaghba, Badadilma, Badada Kharida. (Hyde, Rel. Vet. Pers. 382-383; Inchofer, ut supra; J. As. sér. VI. IX. 160.)
[Just before going to press we have read Major Sykes' new book on Persia. Major Sykes (ch. xxiii.) does not believe that Marco visited Baghdád, and he thinks that the Venetians entered Persia near Tabriz, and travelled to Sultania, Kashán, and Yezd. Thence they proceeded to Kerman and Hormuz. We shall discuss this question in the Introduction.—H. C.]
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
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CHAPTER XV. OF THE EIGHT KINGDOMS OF PERSIA, AND HOW THEY ARE NAMED.
Now you must know that Persia is a very great country, and contains eight kingdoms. I will tell you the names of them all.
The first kingdom is that at the beginning of Persia, and it is called CASVIN; the second is further to the south, and is called CURDISTAN; the third is LOR; the fourth [SUOLSTAN]; the fifth ISTANIT; the sixth SERAZY; the seventh SONCARA; the eighth TUNOCAIN, which is at the further extremity of Persia. All these kingdoms lie in a southerly direction except one, to wit, Tunocain; that lies towards the east, and borders on the (country of the) Arbre Sol.[NOTE 1]
In this country of Persia there is a great supply of fine horses; and people take them to India for sale, for they are horses of great price, a single one being worth as much of their money as is equal to 200 livres Tournois; some will be more, some less, according to the quality.[NOTE 2] Here also are the finest asses in the world, one of them being worth full 30 marks of silver, for they are very large and fast, and acquire a capital amble. Dealers carry their horses to Kisi and Curmosa, two cities on the shores of the Sea of India, and there they meet with merchants who take the horses on to India for sale.
In this country there are many cruel and murderous people, so that no day passes but there is some homicide among them. Were it not for the Government, which is that of the Tartars of the Levant, they would do great mischief to merchants; and indeed, maugre the Government, they often succeed in doing such mischief. Unless merchants be well armed they run the risk of being murdered, or at least robbed of everything; and it sometimes happens that a whole party perishes in this way when not on their guard. The people are all Saracens, i.e. followers of the Law of Mahommet.[NOTE 3]
In the cities there are traders and artizans who live by their labour and crafts, weaving cloths of gold, and silk stuffs of sundry kinds. They have plenty of cotton produced in the country; and abundance of wheat, barley, millet, panick, and wine, with fruits of all kinds.
[Some one may say, "But the Saracens don't drink wine, which is prohibited by their law." The answer is that they gloss their text in this way, that if the wine be boiled, so that a part is dissipated and the rest becomes sweet, they may drink without breach of the commandment; for it is then no longer called wine, the name being changed with the change of flavour.[NOTE 4]]
NOTE 1.—The following appear to be Polo's Eight Kingdoms:—
I. KAZVÍN; then a flourishing city, though I know not why he calls it a kingdom. Persian 'Irák, or the northern portion thereof, seems intended. Previous to Hulaku's invasion Kazvín seems to have been in the hands of the Ismailites or Assassins.
II. KURDISTAN. I do not understand the difficulties of Marsden, followed by Lazari and Pauthier, which lead them to put forth that Kurdistan is not Kurdistan but something else. The boundaries of Kurdistan according to Hamd Allah were Arabian 'Irak, Khuzistán, Persian 'Irak, Azerbaijan and Diarbekr. (Dict. de la P. 480.) [Cf. Curzon, Persia pass.—H. C.]
Persian Kurdistan, in modern as in mediaeval times, extends south beyond Kermanshah to the immediate border of Polo's next kingdom, viz.:
III. LÚR or Lúristán. [On Lúristán, see Curzon, Persia, II. pp. 273-303, with the pedigree of the Ruling Family of the Feili Lurs (Pusht-i-Kuh), p. 278.—H. C.] This was divided into two principalities, Great Lúr and Little Lúr, distinctions still existing. The former was ruled by a Dynasty called the Faslúyah Atabegs, which endured from about 1155 to 1424, [when it was destroyed by the Timurids; it was a Kurd Dynasty, founded by Emad ed-din Abu Thaher (1160-1228), and the last prince of which was Ghiyas ed-din (1424). In 1258 the general Kitubuka (Hulagu's Exp. to Persia, Bretschneider, Med. Res. I. p. 121) is reported to have reduced the country of Lúr or Lúristán and its Atabeg Teghele.—H. C.]. Their territory lay in the mountainous district immediately west of Ispahan, and extended to the River of Dizfúl, which parted it from Little Lúr. The stronghold of the Atabegs was the extraordinary hill fort of Mungasht, and they had a residence also at Aidhej or Mal-Amir in the mountains south of Shushan, where Ibn Batuta visited the reigning Prince in 1327. Sir H. Rawlinson has described Mungasht, and Mr. Layard and Baron de Bode have visited other parts, but the country is still very imperfectly known. Little Lúristán lay west of the R. Dizfúl, extending nearly to the Plain of Babylonia. Its Dynasty, called Kurshid, [was founded in 1184 by the Kurd Shodja ed-din Khurshid, and existed till Shah-Werdy lost his throne in 1593.—H. C.].
The Lúrs are akin to the Kurds, and speak a Kurd dialect, as do all those Ilyáts, or nomads of Persia, who are not of Turkish race. They were noted in the Middle Ages for their agility and their dexterity in thieving. The tribes of Little Lúr "do not affect the slightest veneration for Mahomed or the Koran; their only general object of worship is their great Saint Baba Buzurg," and particular disciples regard with reverence little short of adoration holy men looked on as living representatives of the Divinity. (Ilchan. I. 70 seqq.; Rawlinson in J. R. G. S. IX.; Layard in Do. XVI. 75, 94; Ld. Strangford in J. R. A. S. XX. 64; N. et E. XIII. i. 330, I. B. II. 31; D'Ohsson, IV. 171-172.)
IV. SHÚLISTÁN, best represented by Ramusio's Suolstan, whilst the old French texts have Cielstan (i.e. Shelstán); the name applied to the country of the Shúls, or Shauls, a people who long occupied a part of Lúristán, but were expelled by the Lúrs in the 12th century, and settled in the country between Shíráz and Khuzistán (now that of the Mamaseni, whom Colonel Pelly's information identifies with the Shúls), their central points being Naobanján and the fortress called Kala' Safed or "White Castle." Ibn Batuta, going from Shiraz to Kazerun, encamped the first day in the country of the Shúls, "a Persian desert tribe which includes some pious persons." (Q. R. p. 385; N. et E. XIII. i. 332-333; Ilch. I. 71; J. R. G. S. XIII. Map; I. B. II. 88.) ["Adjoining the Kuhgelus on the East are the tents of the Mamasenni (qy. Mohammed Huseini) Lúrs, occupying the country still known as Shúlistán, and extending as far east and south-east as Fars and the Plain of Kazerun. This tribe prides itself on its origin, claiming to have come from Seistán, and to be directly descended from Rustam, whose name is still borne by one of the Mamasenni clans." (Curzon, Persia, II. p. 318.)—H. C.]
V. ISPAHAN? The name is in Ramusio Spaan, showing at least that he or some one before him had made this identification. The unusual combination ff, i.e. sf, in manuscript would be so like the frequent one ft, i.e. st, that the change from Isfan to Istan would be easy. But why Istan_it_?
VI. SHÍRÁZ [(Shir = milk, or Shir = lion)—H. C.] representing the province of Fars or Persia Proper, of which it has been for ages the chief city. [It was founded after the Arab conquest in 694 A.D., by Mohammed, son of Yusuf Kekfi. (Curzon, Persia, II. pp. 93-110.)—H. C.] The last Dynasty that had reigned in Fars was that of the Salghur Atabegs, founded about the middle of the 12th century. Under Abubakr (1226-1260) this kingdom attained considerable power, embracing Fars, Kermán, the islands of the Gulf and its Arabian shores; and Shíráz then flourished in arts and literature; Abubakr was the patron of Saadi. From about 1262, though a Salghurian princess, married to a son of Hulaku, had the nominal title of Atabeg, the province of Fars was under Mongol administration. (Ilch. passim.)
VII. SHAWÁNKÁRA or Shabánkára. The G. T. has Soucara, but the Crusca gives the true reading Soncara. It is the country of the Shawánkárs, a people coupled with the Shúls and Lúrs in mediaeval Persian history, and like them of Kurd affinities. Their princes, of a family Faslúyah, are spoken of as influential before the Mahomedan conquest, but the name of the people comes prominently forward only during the Mongol era of Persian history. [Shabánkára was taken in 1056 from the Buyid Dynasty, who ruled from the 10th century over a great part of Persia, by Fazl ibn Hassan (Fazluïeh-Hasunïeh). Under the last sovereign, Ardeshir, Shabánkára was taken in 1355 by the Modhafferians, who reigned in Irak, Fars, and Kermán, one of the Dynasties established at the expense of the Mongol Ilkhans after the death of Abu Saïd (1335), and were themselves subjugated by Timur in 1392.—H. C.] Their country lay to the south of the great salt lake east of Shíráz, and included Niriz and Darábjird, Fassa, Forg, and Tárum. Their capital was I/g or I/j, called also Irej, about 20 miles north-west of Daráb, with a great mountain fortress; it was taken by Hulaku in 1259. The son of the prince was continued in nominal authority, with Mongol administrators. In consequence of a rebellion in 1311 the Dynasty seems to have been extinguished. A descendant attempted to revive their authority about the middle of the same century. The latest historical mention of the name that I have found is in Abdurrazzák's History of Shah Rukh, under the year H. 807 (1404). (See Jour. As. 3d. s. vol. ii. 355.) But a note by Colonel Pelly informs me that the name Shabánkára is still applied (1) to the district round the towns of Runiz and Gauristan near Bandar Abbas; (2) to a village near Maiman, in the old country of the tribe; (3) to a tribe and district of Dashtistan, 38 farsakhs west of Shíráz.
With reference to the form in the text, Soncara, I may notice that in two passages of the Masálak-ul-Absár, translated by Quatremère, the name occurs as Shankárah. (Q. R. pp. 380, 440 seqq.; N. et E. XIII.; Ilch. I. 71 and passim; Ouseley's Travels, II. 158 seqq.)
VIII. TÚN-O-KÂIN, the eastern Kuhistán or Hill country of Persia, of which Tún and Káin are chief cities. The practice of indicating a locality by combining two names in this way is common in the East. Elsewhere in this book we find Ariora-Keshemur and Kes-macoran (Kij-Makrán). Upper Sind is often called in India by the Sepoys Rori-Bakkar, from two adjoining places on the Indus; whilst in former days, Lower Sind was often called Diul-Sind. Karra-Mánikpúr, Uch-Multán, Kunduz-Baghlán are other examples.
The exact expression Tún-o-Káin for the province here in question is used by Baber, and evidently also by some of Hammer's authorities. (Baber, pp. 201, 204; see Ilch. II. 190; I. 95, 104, and Hist. de l'Ordre des Assassins, p. 245.)
[We learn from (Sir) C. Macgregor's (1875) Journey through Khorasan (I. p. 127) that the same territory including Gháín or Kaïn is now called by the analogous name of Tabas-o-Tún. Tún and Kaïn (Gháín) are both described in their modern state, by Macgregor. (Ibid. pp. 147 and 161.)—H. C.]
Note that the identification of Suolstan is due to Quatremère (see N. et E. XIII. i. circa p. 332); that of Soncara to Defréméry (J. As. sér. IV. tom. xi. p. 441); and that of Tunocain to Malte-Brun. (N. Ann. des V. xviii. p. 261.) I may add that the Lúrs, the Shúls, and the Shabánkáras are the subjects of three successive sections in the Masálak-al-Absár of Shihábuddin Dimishki, a work which reflects much of Polo's geography. (See N. et E. XIII. i. 330-333; Curzon, Persia, II. pp. 248 and 251.)
NOTE 2.—The horses exported to India, of which we shall hear more hereafter, were probably the same class of "Gulf Arabs" that are now carried thither. But the Turkman horses of Persia are also very valuable, especially for endurance. Kinneir speaks of one accomplishing 900 miles in eleven days, and Ferrier states a still more extraordinary feat from his own knowledge. In that case one of those horses went from Tehran to Tabriz, returned, and went again to Tabriz, within twelve days, including two days' rest. The total distance is about 1100 miles.
The livre tournois at this period was equivalent to a little over 18 francs of modern French silver. But in bringing the value to our modern gold standard we must add one-third, as the ratio of silver to gold was then 1:12 instead of 1:16. Hence the equivalent in gold of the livre tournois is very little less than 1_l._ sterling, and the price of the horse would be about 193_l._[1]
Mr. Wright quotes an ordinance of Philip III. of France (1270-1285) fixing the maximum price that might be given for a palfrey at 60 livres tournois, and for a squire's roncin at 20 livres. Joinville, however, speaks of a couple of horses presented to St. Lewis in 1254 by the Abbot of Cluny, which he says would at the time of his writing (1309) have been worth 500 livres (the pair, it would seem). Hence it may be concluded in a general way that the ordinary price of imported horses in India approached that of the highest class of horses in Europe. (Hist. of Dom. Manners, p. 317; Joinville, p. 205.)
About 1850 a very fair Arab could be purchased in Bombay for 60_l._, or even less; but prices are much higher now.
With regard to the donkeys, according to Tavernier, the fine ones used by merchants in Persia were imported from Arabia. The mark of silver was equivalent to about 44_s._ of our silver money, and allowing as before for the lower relative value of gold, 30 marks would be equivalent to 88_l._ sterling.
Kisi or Kish we have already heard of. Curmosa is Hormuz, of which we shall hear more. With a Pisan, as Rusticiano was, the sound of c is purely and strongly aspirate. Giovanni d'Empoli, in the beginning of the 16th century, another Tuscan, also calls it Cormus. (See Archiv. Stor. Ital. Append. III. 81.)
NOTE 3.—The character of the nomad and semi-nomad tribes of Persia in those days—Kurds, Lúrs, Shúls, Karaunahs, etc.—probably deserved all that Polo says, and it is not changed now. Take as an example Rawlinson's account of the Bakhtyáris of Luristán: "I believe them to be individually brave, but of a cruel and savage character; they pursue their blood feuds with the most inveterate and exterminating spirit…. It is proverbial in Persia that the Bakhtiyaris have been compelled to forego altogether the reading of the Fatihah or prayer for the dead, for otherwise they would have no other occupation. They are also most dextrous and notorious thieves." (J. R. G. S. IX. 105.)
NOTE 4.—The Persians have always been lax in regard to the abstinence from wine.
According to Athenaeus, Aristotle, in his Treatise on Drinking (a work lost, I imagine, to posterity), says, "If the wine be moderately boiled it is less apt to intoxicate." In the preparation of some of the sweet wines of the Levant, such as that of Cyprus, the must is boiled, but I believe this is not the case generally in the East. Baber notices it as a peculiarity among the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush. Tavernier, however, says that at Shíráz, besides the wine for which that city was so celebrated, a good deal of boiled wine was manufactured, and used among the poor and by travellers. No doubt what is meant is the sweet liquor or syrup called Dúsháb, which Della Valle says is just the Italian Mostocotto, but better, clearer, and not so mawkish (I. 689). (Yonge's Athen. X. 34; Baber, p. 145; Tavernier, Bk. V. ch. xxi.)
_______________
Notes:
[1] The Encyc. Britann., article "Money," gives the livre tournois of this period as 18.17 francs. A French paper in Notes and Queries (4th S. IV. 485) gives it under St. Lewis and Philip III. as equivalent to 18.24 fr., and under Philip IV. to 17.95. And lastly, experiment at the British Museum, made by the kind intervention of my friend, Mr. E. Thomas, F.R.S., gave the weights of the sols of St. Lewis (1226-1270) and Philip IV. (1285-1314) respectively as 63 grains and 61-1/2 grains of remarkably pure silver. These trials would give the livres (20 sols) as equivalent to 18.14 fr. and 17.70 fr. respectively.
Now you must know that Persia is a very great country, and contains eight kingdoms. I will tell you the names of them all.
The first kingdom is that at the beginning of Persia, and it is called CASVIN; the second is further to the south, and is called CURDISTAN; the third is LOR; the fourth [SUOLSTAN]; the fifth ISTANIT; the sixth SERAZY; the seventh SONCARA; the eighth TUNOCAIN, which is at the further extremity of Persia. All these kingdoms lie in a southerly direction except one, to wit, Tunocain; that lies towards the east, and borders on the (country of the) Arbre Sol.[NOTE 1]
In this country of Persia there is a great supply of fine horses; and people take them to India for sale, for they are horses of great price, a single one being worth as much of their money as is equal to 200 livres Tournois; some will be more, some less, according to the quality.[NOTE 2] Here also are the finest asses in the world, one of them being worth full 30 marks of silver, for they are very large and fast, and acquire a capital amble. Dealers carry their horses to Kisi and Curmosa, two cities on the shores of the Sea of India, and there they meet with merchants who take the horses on to India for sale.
In this country there are many cruel and murderous people, so that no day passes but there is some homicide among them. Were it not for the Government, which is that of the Tartars of the Levant, they would do great mischief to merchants; and indeed, maugre the Government, they often succeed in doing such mischief. Unless merchants be well armed they run the risk of being murdered, or at least robbed of everything; and it sometimes happens that a whole party perishes in this way when not on their guard. The people are all Saracens, i.e. followers of the Law of Mahommet.[NOTE 3]
In the cities there are traders and artizans who live by their labour and crafts, weaving cloths of gold, and silk stuffs of sundry kinds. They have plenty of cotton produced in the country; and abundance of wheat, barley, millet, panick, and wine, with fruits of all kinds.
[Some one may say, "But the Saracens don't drink wine, which is prohibited by their law." The answer is that they gloss their text in this way, that if the wine be boiled, so that a part is dissipated and the rest becomes sweet, they may drink without breach of the commandment; for it is then no longer called wine, the name being changed with the change of flavour.[NOTE 4]]
NOTE 1.—The following appear to be Polo's Eight Kingdoms:—
I. KAZVÍN; then a flourishing city, though I know not why he calls it a kingdom. Persian 'Irák, or the northern portion thereof, seems intended. Previous to Hulaku's invasion Kazvín seems to have been in the hands of the Ismailites or Assassins.
II. KURDISTAN. I do not understand the difficulties of Marsden, followed by Lazari and Pauthier, which lead them to put forth that Kurdistan is not Kurdistan but something else. The boundaries of Kurdistan according to Hamd Allah were Arabian 'Irak, Khuzistán, Persian 'Irak, Azerbaijan and Diarbekr. (Dict. de la P. 480.) [Cf. Curzon, Persia pass.—H. C.]
Persian Kurdistan, in modern as in mediaeval times, extends south beyond Kermanshah to the immediate border of Polo's next kingdom, viz.:
III. LÚR or Lúristán. [On Lúristán, see Curzon, Persia, II. pp. 273-303, with the pedigree of the Ruling Family of the Feili Lurs (Pusht-i-Kuh), p. 278.—H. C.] This was divided into two principalities, Great Lúr and Little Lúr, distinctions still existing. The former was ruled by a Dynasty called the Faslúyah Atabegs, which endured from about 1155 to 1424, [when it was destroyed by the Timurids; it was a Kurd Dynasty, founded by Emad ed-din Abu Thaher (1160-1228), and the last prince of which was Ghiyas ed-din (1424). In 1258 the general Kitubuka (Hulagu's Exp. to Persia, Bretschneider, Med. Res. I. p. 121) is reported to have reduced the country of Lúr or Lúristán and its Atabeg Teghele.—H. C.]. Their territory lay in the mountainous district immediately west of Ispahan, and extended to the River of Dizfúl, which parted it from Little Lúr. The stronghold of the Atabegs was the extraordinary hill fort of Mungasht, and they had a residence also at Aidhej or Mal-Amir in the mountains south of Shushan, where Ibn Batuta visited the reigning Prince in 1327. Sir H. Rawlinson has described Mungasht, and Mr. Layard and Baron de Bode have visited other parts, but the country is still very imperfectly known. Little Lúristán lay west of the R. Dizfúl, extending nearly to the Plain of Babylonia. Its Dynasty, called Kurshid, [was founded in 1184 by the Kurd Shodja ed-din Khurshid, and existed till Shah-Werdy lost his throne in 1593.—H. C.].
The Lúrs are akin to the Kurds, and speak a Kurd dialect, as do all those Ilyáts, or nomads of Persia, who are not of Turkish race. They were noted in the Middle Ages for their agility and their dexterity in thieving. The tribes of Little Lúr "do not affect the slightest veneration for Mahomed or the Koran; their only general object of worship is their great Saint Baba Buzurg," and particular disciples regard with reverence little short of adoration holy men looked on as living representatives of the Divinity. (Ilchan. I. 70 seqq.; Rawlinson in J. R. G. S. IX.; Layard in Do. XVI. 75, 94; Ld. Strangford in J. R. A. S. XX. 64; N. et E. XIII. i. 330, I. B. II. 31; D'Ohsson, IV. 171-172.)
IV. SHÚLISTÁN, best represented by Ramusio's Suolstan, whilst the old French texts have Cielstan (i.e. Shelstán); the name applied to the country of the Shúls, or Shauls, a people who long occupied a part of Lúristán, but were expelled by the Lúrs in the 12th century, and settled in the country between Shíráz and Khuzistán (now that of the Mamaseni, whom Colonel Pelly's information identifies with the Shúls), their central points being Naobanján and the fortress called Kala' Safed or "White Castle." Ibn Batuta, going from Shiraz to Kazerun, encamped the first day in the country of the Shúls, "a Persian desert tribe which includes some pious persons." (Q. R. p. 385; N. et E. XIII. i. 332-333; Ilch. I. 71; J. R. G. S. XIII. Map; I. B. II. 88.) ["Adjoining the Kuhgelus on the East are the tents of the Mamasenni (qy. Mohammed Huseini) Lúrs, occupying the country still known as Shúlistán, and extending as far east and south-east as Fars and the Plain of Kazerun. This tribe prides itself on its origin, claiming to have come from Seistán, and to be directly descended from Rustam, whose name is still borne by one of the Mamasenni clans." (Curzon, Persia, II. p. 318.)—H. C.]
V. ISPAHAN? The name is in Ramusio Spaan, showing at least that he or some one before him had made this identification. The unusual combination ff, i.e. sf, in manuscript would be so like the frequent one ft, i.e. st, that the change from Isfan to Istan would be easy. But why Istan_it_?
VI. SHÍRÁZ [(Shir = milk, or Shir = lion)—H. C.] representing the province of Fars or Persia Proper, of which it has been for ages the chief city. [It was founded after the Arab conquest in 694 A.D., by Mohammed, son of Yusuf Kekfi. (Curzon, Persia, II. pp. 93-110.)—H. C.] The last Dynasty that had reigned in Fars was that of the Salghur Atabegs, founded about the middle of the 12th century. Under Abubakr (1226-1260) this kingdom attained considerable power, embracing Fars, Kermán, the islands of the Gulf and its Arabian shores; and Shíráz then flourished in arts and literature; Abubakr was the patron of Saadi. From about 1262, though a Salghurian princess, married to a son of Hulaku, had the nominal title of Atabeg, the province of Fars was under Mongol administration. (Ilch. passim.)
VII. SHAWÁNKÁRA or Shabánkára. The G. T. has Soucara, but the Crusca gives the true reading Soncara. It is the country of the Shawánkárs, a people coupled with the Shúls and Lúrs in mediaeval Persian history, and like them of Kurd affinities. Their princes, of a family Faslúyah, are spoken of as influential before the Mahomedan conquest, but the name of the people comes prominently forward only during the Mongol era of Persian history. [Shabánkára was taken in 1056 from the Buyid Dynasty, who ruled from the 10th century over a great part of Persia, by Fazl ibn Hassan (Fazluïeh-Hasunïeh). Under the last sovereign, Ardeshir, Shabánkára was taken in 1355 by the Modhafferians, who reigned in Irak, Fars, and Kermán, one of the Dynasties established at the expense of the Mongol Ilkhans after the death of Abu Saïd (1335), and were themselves subjugated by Timur in 1392.—H. C.] Their country lay to the south of the great salt lake east of Shíráz, and included Niriz and Darábjird, Fassa, Forg, and Tárum. Their capital was I/g or I/j, called also Irej, about 20 miles north-west of Daráb, with a great mountain fortress; it was taken by Hulaku in 1259. The son of the prince was continued in nominal authority, with Mongol administrators. In consequence of a rebellion in 1311 the Dynasty seems to have been extinguished. A descendant attempted to revive their authority about the middle of the same century. The latest historical mention of the name that I have found is in Abdurrazzák's History of Shah Rukh, under the year H. 807 (1404). (See Jour. As. 3d. s. vol. ii. 355.) But a note by Colonel Pelly informs me that the name Shabánkára is still applied (1) to the district round the towns of Runiz and Gauristan near Bandar Abbas; (2) to a village near Maiman, in the old country of the tribe; (3) to a tribe and district of Dashtistan, 38 farsakhs west of Shíráz.
With reference to the form in the text, Soncara, I may notice that in two passages of the Masálak-ul-Absár, translated by Quatremère, the name occurs as Shankárah. (Q. R. pp. 380, 440 seqq.; N. et E. XIII.; Ilch. I. 71 and passim; Ouseley's Travels, II. 158 seqq.)
VIII. TÚN-O-KÂIN, the eastern Kuhistán or Hill country of Persia, of which Tún and Káin are chief cities. The practice of indicating a locality by combining two names in this way is common in the East. Elsewhere in this book we find Ariora-Keshemur and Kes-macoran (Kij-Makrán). Upper Sind is often called in India by the Sepoys Rori-Bakkar, from two adjoining places on the Indus; whilst in former days, Lower Sind was often called Diul-Sind. Karra-Mánikpúr, Uch-Multán, Kunduz-Baghlán are other examples.
The exact expression Tún-o-Káin for the province here in question is used by Baber, and evidently also by some of Hammer's authorities. (Baber, pp. 201, 204; see Ilch. II. 190; I. 95, 104, and Hist. de l'Ordre des Assassins, p. 245.)
[We learn from (Sir) C. Macgregor's (1875) Journey through Khorasan (I. p. 127) that the same territory including Gháín or Kaïn is now called by the analogous name of Tabas-o-Tún. Tún and Kaïn (Gháín) are both described in their modern state, by Macgregor. (Ibid. pp. 147 and 161.)—H. C.]
Note that the identification of Suolstan is due to Quatremère (see N. et E. XIII. i. circa p. 332); that of Soncara to Defréméry (J. As. sér. IV. tom. xi. p. 441); and that of Tunocain to Malte-Brun. (N. Ann. des V. xviii. p. 261.) I may add that the Lúrs, the Shúls, and the Shabánkáras are the subjects of three successive sections in the Masálak-al-Absár of Shihábuddin Dimishki, a work which reflects much of Polo's geography. (See N. et E. XIII. i. 330-333; Curzon, Persia, II. pp. 248 and 251.)
NOTE 2.—The horses exported to India, of which we shall hear more hereafter, were probably the same class of "Gulf Arabs" that are now carried thither. But the Turkman horses of Persia are also very valuable, especially for endurance. Kinneir speaks of one accomplishing 900 miles in eleven days, and Ferrier states a still more extraordinary feat from his own knowledge. In that case one of those horses went from Tehran to Tabriz, returned, and went again to Tabriz, within twelve days, including two days' rest. The total distance is about 1100 miles.
The livre tournois at this period was equivalent to a little over 18 francs of modern French silver. But in bringing the value to our modern gold standard we must add one-third, as the ratio of silver to gold was then 1:12 instead of 1:16. Hence the equivalent in gold of the livre tournois is very little less than 1_l._ sterling, and the price of the horse would be about 193_l._[1]
Mr. Wright quotes an ordinance of Philip III. of France (1270-1285) fixing the maximum price that might be given for a palfrey at 60 livres tournois, and for a squire's roncin at 20 livres. Joinville, however, speaks of a couple of horses presented to St. Lewis in 1254 by the Abbot of Cluny, which he says would at the time of his writing (1309) have been worth 500 livres (the pair, it would seem). Hence it may be concluded in a general way that the ordinary price of imported horses in India approached that of the highest class of horses in Europe. (Hist. of Dom. Manners, p. 317; Joinville, p. 205.)
About 1850 a very fair Arab could be purchased in Bombay for 60_l._, or even less; but prices are much higher now.
With regard to the donkeys, according to Tavernier, the fine ones used by merchants in Persia were imported from Arabia. The mark of silver was equivalent to about 44_s._ of our silver money, and allowing as before for the lower relative value of gold, 30 marks would be equivalent to 88_l._ sterling.
Kisi or Kish we have already heard of. Curmosa is Hormuz, of which we shall hear more. With a Pisan, as Rusticiano was, the sound of c is purely and strongly aspirate. Giovanni d'Empoli, in the beginning of the 16th century, another Tuscan, also calls it Cormus. (See Archiv. Stor. Ital. Append. III. 81.)
NOTE 3.—The character of the nomad and semi-nomad tribes of Persia in those days—Kurds, Lúrs, Shúls, Karaunahs, etc.—probably deserved all that Polo says, and it is not changed now. Take as an example Rawlinson's account of the Bakhtyáris of Luristán: "I believe them to be individually brave, but of a cruel and savage character; they pursue their blood feuds with the most inveterate and exterminating spirit…. It is proverbial in Persia that the Bakhtiyaris have been compelled to forego altogether the reading of the Fatihah or prayer for the dead, for otherwise they would have no other occupation. They are also most dextrous and notorious thieves." (J. R. G. S. IX. 105.)
NOTE 4.—The Persians have always been lax in regard to the abstinence from wine.
According to Athenaeus, Aristotle, in his Treatise on Drinking (a work lost, I imagine, to posterity), says, "If the wine be moderately boiled it is less apt to intoxicate." In the preparation of some of the sweet wines of the Levant, such as that of Cyprus, the must is boiled, but I believe this is not the case generally in the East. Baber notices it as a peculiarity among the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush. Tavernier, however, says that at Shíráz, besides the wine for which that city was so celebrated, a good deal of boiled wine was manufactured, and used among the poor and by travellers. No doubt what is meant is the sweet liquor or syrup called Dúsháb, which Della Valle says is just the Italian Mostocotto, but better, clearer, and not so mawkish (I. 689). (Yonge's Athen. X. 34; Baber, p. 145; Tavernier, Bk. V. ch. xxi.)
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Notes:
[1] The Encyc. Britann., article "Money," gives the livre tournois of this period as 18.17 francs. A French paper in Notes and Queries (4th S. IV. 485) gives it under St. Lewis and Philip III. as equivalent to 18.24 fr., and under Philip IV. to 17.95. And lastly, experiment at the British Museum, made by the kind intervention of my friend, Mr. E. Thomas, F.R.S., gave the weights of the sols of St. Lewis (1226-1270) and Philip IV. (1285-1314) respectively as 63 grains and 61-1/2 grains of remarkably pure silver. These trials would give the livres (20 sols) as equivalent to 18.14 fr. and 17.70 fr. respectively.
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
by admin » Tue Mar 27, 2018 8:07 pm
CHAPTER XVI. CONCERNING THE GREAT CITY OF YASDI.
Yasdi also is properly in Persia; it is a good and noble city, and has a great amount of trade. They weave there quantities of a certain silk tissue known as Yasdi, which merchants carry into many quarters to dispose of. The people are worshippers of Mahommet.[NOTE 1]
When you leave this city to travel further, you ride for seven days over great plains, finding harbour to receive you at three places only. There are many fine woods [producing dates] upon the way, such as one can easily ride through; and in them there is great sport to be had in hunting and hawking, there being partridges and quails and abundance of other game, so that the merchants who pass that way have plenty of diversion. There are also wild asses, handsome creatures. At the end of those seven marches over the plain you come to a fine kingdom which is called Kerman.[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1.—YEZD, an ancient city, supposed by D'Anville to be the Isatichae of Ptolemy, is not called by Marco a kingdom, though having a better title to the distinction than some which he classes as such. The atabegs of Yezd dated from the middle of the 11th century, and their Dynasty was permitted by the Mongols to continue till the end of the 13th, when it was extinguished by Ghazan, and the administration made over to the Mongol Diwan.
Yezd, in pre-Mahomedan times, was a great sanctuary of the Gueber worship, though now it is a seat of fanatical Mahomedanism. It is, however, one of the few places where the old religion lingers. In 1859 there were reckoned 850 families of Guebers in Yezd and fifteen adjoining villages, but they diminish rapidly.
[Heyd (Com. du Levant, II. p. 109) says the inhabitants of Yezd wove the finest silk of Taberistan.—H. C.] The silk manufactures still continue, and, with other weaving, employ a large part of the population. The Yazdi, which Polo mentions, finds a place in the Persian dictionaries, and is spoken of by D'Herbelot as Kumásh-i-Yezdi, "Yezd stuff." ["He [Nadir Shah] bestowed upon the ambassador [Hakeem Ataleek, the prime minister of Abulfiez Khan, King of Bokhara] a donation of a thousand mohurs of Hindostan, twenty-five pieces of Yezdy brocade, a rich dress, and a horse with silver harness…." (Memoirs of Khojah Abdulkurreem, a Cashmerian of distinction … transl. from the original Persian, by Francis Gladwin … Calcutta, 1788, 8vo, p. 36.)—H. C.]
Yezd is still a place of important trade, and carries on a thriving commerce with India by Bandar Abbási. A visitor in the end of 1865 says: "The external trade appears to be very considerable, and the merchants of Yezd are reputed to be amongst the most enterprising and respectable of their class in Persia. Some of their agents have lately gone, not only to Bombay, but to the Mauritius, Java, and China."
(Ilch. I. 67-68; Khanikoff, Mém. p. 202; Report by Major R. M. Smith, R.E.)
Friar Odoric, who visited Yezd, calls it the third best city of the Persian Emperor, and says (Cathay, I. p. 52): "There is very great store of victuals and all other good things that you can mention; but especially is found there great plenty of figs; and raisins also, green as grass and very small, are found there in richer profusion than in any other part of the world." [He also gives from the smaller version of Ramusio's an awful description of the Sea of Sand, one day distant from Yezd. (Cf. Tavernier, 1679, I. p. 116.)—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—I believe Della Valle correctly generalises when he says of Persian travelling that "you always travel in a plain, but you always have mountains on either hand" (I. 462). [Compare Macgregor, I. 254: "I really cannot describe the road. Every road in Persia as yet seems to me to be exactly alike, so … my readers will take it for granted that the road went over a waste, with barren rugged hills in the distance, or near; no water, no houses, no people passed."—H. C.] The distance from Yezd to Kermán is, according to Khanikoff's survey, 314 kilomètres, or about 195 miles. Ramusio makes the time eight days, which is probably the better reading, giving a little over 24 miles a day. Westergaard in 1844, and Khanikoff in 1859, took ten days; Colonel Goldsmid and Major Smith in 1865 twelve. ["The distance from Yezd to Kermán by the present high road, 229 miles, is by caravans, generally made in nine stages; persons travelling with all comforts do it in twelve stages; travellers whose time is of some value do it easily in seven days." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. pp. 490-491.)—H. C.]
Khanikoff observes on this chapter: "This notice of woods easy to ride through, covering the plain of Yezd, is very curious. Now you find it a plain of great extent indeed from N.W. to S.E., but narrow and arid; indeed I saw in it only thirteen inhabited spots, counting two caravanserais. Water for the inhabitants is brought from a great distance by subterraneous conduits, a practice which may have tended to desiccate the soil, for every trace of wood has completely disappeared."
Abbott travelled from Yezd to Kermán in 1849, by a road through Báfk, east of the usual road, which Khanikoff followed, and parallel to it; and it is worthy of note that he found circumstances more accordant with Marco's description. Before getting to Báfk he says of the plain that it "extends to a great distance north and south, and is probably 20 miles in breadth;" whilst Báfk "is remarkable for its groves of date-trees, in the midst of which it stands, and which occupy a considerable space." Further on he speaks of "wild tufts and bushes growing abundantly," and then of "thickets of the Ghez tree." He heard of the wild asses, but did not see any. In his report to the Foreign Office, alluding to Marco Polo's account, he says: "It is still true that wild asses and other game are found in the wooded spots on the road." The ass is the Asinus Onager, the Gor Khar of Persia, or Kulan of the Tartars. (Khan. Mém. p. 200; Id. sur Marco Polo, p. 21; J. R. G. S. XXV. 20-29; Mr. Abbott's MS. Report in Foreign office.) [The difficulty has now been explained by General Houtum-Schindler in a valuable paper published in the Jour. Roy. As. Soc. N.S. XIII., October, 1881, p. 490. He says: "Marco Polo travelled from Yazd to Kermán viâ Báfk. His description of the road, seven days over great plains, harbour at three places only, is perfectly exact. The fine woods, producing dates, are at Báfk itself. (The place is generally called Báft.) Partridges and quails still abound; wild asses I saw several on the western road, and I was told that there were a great many on the Báfk road. Travellers and caravans now always go by the eastern road viâ Anár and Bahrámábád. Before the Sefavíehs (i.e. before A.D. 1500) the Anár road was hardly, if ever, used; travellers always took the Báfk road. The country from Yazd to Anár, 97 miles, seems to have been totally uninhabited before the Sefavíehs. Anár, as late as A.D. 1340, is mentioned as the frontier place of Kermán to the north, on the confines of the Yazd desert. When Sháh Abbás had caravanserais built at three places between Yazd and Anár (Zein ud-dín, Kermán-sháhán, and Shamsh), the eastern road began to be neglected." (Cf. Major Sykes' Persia, ch. xxiii.)—H. C.]
Yasdi also is properly in Persia; it is a good and noble city, and has a great amount of trade. They weave there quantities of a certain silk tissue known as Yasdi, which merchants carry into many quarters to dispose of. The people are worshippers of Mahommet.[NOTE 1]
When you leave this city to travel further, you ride for seven days over great plains, finding harbour to receive you at three places only. There are many fine woods [producing dates] upon the way, such as one can easily ride through; and in them there is great sport to be had in hunting and hawking, there being partridges and quails and abundance of other game, so that the merchants who pass that way have plenty of diversion. There are also wild asses, handsome creatures. At the end of those seven marches over the plain you come to a fine kingdom which is called Kerman.[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1.—YEZD, an ancient city, supposed by D'Anville to be the Isatichae of Ptolemy, is not called by Marco a kingdom, though having a better title to the distinction than some which he classes as such. The atabegs of Yezd dated from the middle of the 11th century, and their Dynasty was permitted by the Mongols to continue till the end of the 13th, when it was extinguished by Ghazan, and the administration made over to the Mongol Diwan.
Yezd, in pre-Mahomedan times, was a great sanctuary of the Gueber worship, though now it is a seat of fanatical Mahomedanism. It is, however, one of the few places where the old religion lingers. In 1859 there were reckoned 850 families of Guebers in Yezd and fifteen adjoining villages, but they diminish rapidly.
[Heyd (Com. du Levant, II. p. 109) says the inhabitants of Yezd wove the finest silk of Taberistan.—H. C.] The silk manufactures still continue, and, with other weaving, employ a large part of the population. The Yazdi, which Polo mentions, finds a place in the Persian dictionaries, and is spoken of by D'Herbelot as Kumásh-i-Yezdi, "Yezd stuff." ["He [Nadir Shah] bestowed upon the ambassador [Hakeem Ataleek, the prime minister of Abulfiez Khan, King of Bokhara] a donation of a thousand mohurs of Hindostan, twenty-five pieces of Yezdy brocade, a rich dress, and a horse with silver harness…." (Memoirs of Khojah Abdulkurreem, a Cashmerian of distinction … transl. from the original Persian, by Francis Gladwin … Calcutta, 1788, 8vo, p. 36.)—H. C.]
Yezd is still a place of important trade, and carries on a thriving commerce with India by Bandar Abbási. A visitor in the end of 1865 says: "The external trade appears to be very considerable, and the merchants of Yezd are reputed to be amongst the most enterprising and respectable of their class in Persia. Some of their agents have lately gone, not only to Bombay, but to the Mauritius, Java, and China."
(Ilch. I. 67-68; Khanikoff, Mém. p. 202; Report by Major R. M. Smith, R.E.)
Friar Odoric, who visited Yezd, calls it the third best city of the Persian Emperor, and says (Cathay, I. p. 52): "There is very great store of victuals and all other good things that you can mention; but especially is found there great plenty of figs; and raisins also, green as grass and very small, are found there in richer profusion than in any other part of the world." [He also gives from the smaller version of Ramusio's an awful description of the Sea of Sand, one day distant from Yezd. (Cf. Tavernier, 1679, I. p. 116.)—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—I believe Della Valle correctly generalises when he says of Persian travelling that "you always travel in a plain, but you always have mountains on either hand" (I. 462). [Compare Macgregor, I. 254: "I really cannot describe the road. Every road in Persia as yet seems to me to be exactly alike, so … my readers will take it for granted that the road went over a waste, with barren rugged hills in the distance, or near; no water, no houses, no people passed."—H. C.] The distance from Yezd to Kermán is, according to Khanikoff's survey, 314 kilomètres, or about 195 miles. Ramusio makes the time eight days, which is probably the better reading, giving a little over 24 miles a day. Westergaard in 1844, and Khanikoff in 1859, took ten days; Colonel Goldsmid and Major Smith in 1865 twelve. ["The distance from Yezd to Kermán by the present high road, 229 miles, is by caravans, generally made in nine stages; persons travelling with all comforts do it in twelve stages; travellers whose time is of some value do it easily in seven days." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. pp. 490-491.)—H. C.]
Khanikoff observes on this chapter: "This notice of woods easy to ride through, covering the plain of Yezd, is very curious. Now you find it a plain of great extent indeed from N.W. to S.E., but narrow and arid; indeed I saw in it only thirteen inhabited spots, counting two caravanserais. Water for the inhabitants is brought from a great distance by subterraneous conduits, a practice which may have tended to desiccate the soil, for every trace of wood has completely disappeared."
Abbott travelled from Yezd to Kermán in 1849, by a road through Báfk, east of the usual road, which Khanikoff followed, and parallel to it; and it is worthy of note that he found circumstances more accordant with Marco's description. Before getting to Báfk he says of the plain that it "extends to a great distance north and south, and is probably 20 miles in breadth;" whilst Báfk "is remarkable for its groves of date-trees, in the midst of which it stands, and which occupy a considerable space." Further on he speaks of "wild tufts and bushes growing abundantly," and then of "thickets of the Ghez tree." He heard of the wild asses, but did not see any. In his report to the Foreign Office, alluding to Marco Polo's account, he says: "It is still true that wild asses and other game are found in the wooded spots on the road." The ass is the Asinus Onager, the Gor Khar of Persia, or Kulan of the Tartars. (Khan. Mém. p. 200; Id. sur Marco Polo, p. 21; J. R. G. S. XXV. 20-29; Mr. Abbott's MS. Report in Foreign office.) [The difficulty has now been explained by General Houtum-Schindler in a valuable paper published in the Jour. Roy. As. Soc. N.S. XIII., October, 1881, p. 490. He says: "Marco Polo travelled from Yazd to Kermán viâ Báfk. His description of the road, seven days over great plains, harbour at three places only, is perfectly exact. The fine woods, producing dates, are at Báfk itself. (The place is generally called Báft.) Partridges and quails still abound; wild asses I saw several on the western road, and I was told that there were a great many on the Báfk road. Travellers and caravans now always go by the eastern road viâ Anár and Bahrámábád. Before the Sefavíehs (i.e. before A.D. 1500) the Anár road was hardly, if ever, used; travellers always took the Báfk road. The country from Yazd to Anár, 97 miles, seems to have been totally uninhabited before the Sefavíehs. Anár, as late as A.D. 1340, is mentioned as the frontier place of Kermán to the north, on the confines of the Yazd desert. When Sháh Abbás had caravanserais built at three places between Yazd and Anár (Zein ud-dín, Kermán-sháhán, and Shamsh), the eastern road began to be neglected." (Cf. Major Sykes' Persia, ch. xxiii.)—H. C.]
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
by admin » Tue Mar 27, 2018 8:09 pm
CHAPTER XVII. CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF KERMAN.
Kerman is a kingdom which is also properly in Persia, and formerly it had a hereditary prince. Since the Tartars conquered the country the rule is no longer hereditary, but the Tartar sends to administer whatever lord he pleases.[NOTE 1] In this kingdom are produced the stones called turquoises in great abundance; they are found in the mountains, where they are extracted from the rocks.[NOTE 2] There are also plenty of veins of steel and Ondanique.[NOTE 3] The people are very skilful in making harness of war; their saddles, bridles, spurs, swords, bows, quivers, and arms of every kind, are very well made indeed according to the fashion of those parts. The ladies of the country and their daughters also produce exquisite needlework in the embroidery of silk stuffs in different colours, with figures of beasts and birds, trees and flowers, and a variety of other patterns. They work hangings for the use of noblemen so deftly that they are marvels to see, as well as cushions, pillows quilts, and all sorts of things.[NOTE 4]
In the mountains of Kerman are found the best falcons in the world. They are inferior in size to the Peregrine, red on the breast, under the neck, and between the thighs; their flight so swift that no bird can escape them.[NOTE 5]
On quitting the city you ride on for seven days, always finding towns, villages, and handsome dwelling-houses, so that it is very pleasant travelling; and there is excellent sport also to be had by the way in hunting and hawking. When you have ridden those seven days over a plain country, you come to a great mountain; and when you have got to the top of the pass you find a great descent which occupies some two days to go down. All along you find a variety and abundance of fruits; and in former days there were plenty of inhabited places on the road, but now there are none; and you meet with only a few people looking after their cattle at pasture. From the city of Kerman to this descent the cold in winter is so great that you can scarcely abide it, even with a great quantity of clothing.[NOTE 6]
NOTE 1.—Kermán is mentioned by Ptolemy, and also by Ammianus amongst the cities of the country so called (Carmania): "inter quas nitet Carmana omnium mater." (XXIII. 6.)
M. Pauthier's supposition that Sirján was in Polo's time the capital, is incorrect. (See N. et E. XIV. 208, 290.) Our Author's Kermán is the city still so called; and its proper name would seem to have been Kuwáshír. (See Reinaud, Mém. sur l'Inde, 171; also Sprenger P. and R. R. 77.) According to Khanikoff it is 5535 feet above the sea.
Kermán, on the fall of the Beni Búya Dynasty, in the middle of the 11th century, came into the hands of a branch of the Seljukian Turks, who retained it till the conquests of the Kings of Khwarizm, which just preceded the Mongol invasion. In 1226 the Amir Borák, a Kara Khitaian, who was governor on behalf of Jaláluddin of Khwarizm, became independent under the title of Kutlugh Sultan. [He died in 1234.] The Mongols allowed this family to retain the immediate authority, and at the time when Polo returned from China the representative of the house was a lady known as the Pádishah Khátún [who reigned from 1291], the wife successively of the Ilkhans Abaka and Kaikhatu; an ambitious, clever, and masterful woman, who put her own brother Siyurgutmish to death as a rival, and was herself, after the decease of Kaikhatu, put to death by her brother's widow and daughter [1294]. The Dynasty continued, nominally at least, to the reign of the Ilkhan Khodabanda (1304-13), when it was extinguished. [See Major Sykes' Persia, chaps, v. and xxiii.]
Kermán was a Nestorian see, under the Metropolitan of Fars. (Ilch. passim; Weil, III. 454; Lequien, II. 1256.)
["There is some confusion with regard to the names of Kermán both as a town and as a province or kingdom. We have the names Kermán, Kuwáshír, Bardshír. I should say the original name of the whole country was Kermán, the ancient Karamania. A province of this was called Kúreh-i-Ardeshír, which, being contracted, became Kuwáshír, and is spoken of as the province in which Ardeshír Bábekán, the first Sassanian monarch, resided. A part of Kúreh-i-Ardeshír was called Bardshír, or Bard-i-Ardeshír, now occasionally Bardsír, and the present city of Kermán was situated at its north-eastern corner. This town, during the Middle Ages, was called Bardshír. On a coin of Qara Arslán Beg, King of Kermán, of A.H. 462, Mr. Stanley Lane Poole reads Yazdashír instead of Bardshír. Of Al Idrísí's Yazdashír I see no mention in histories; Bardshír was the capital and the place where most of the coins were struck. Yazdashír, if such a place existed, can only have been a place of small importance. It is, perhaps, a clerical error for Bardshír; without diacritical points, both words are written alike. Later, the name of the city became Kermán, the name Bardshír reverting to the district lying south-west of it, with its principal place Mashíz. In a similar manner Mashíz was often, and is so now, called Bardshír. Another old town sometimes confused with Bardshír was Sírján or Shírján, once more important than Bardshír; it is spoken of as the capital of Kermán, of Bardshír, and of Sardsír. Its name now exists only as that of a district, with principal place S'aídábád. The history of Kermán, 'Agd-ul-'Olá, plainly says Bardshír is the capital of Kermán, and from the description of Bardshír there is no doubt of its having been the present town Kermán. It is strange that Marco Polo does not give the name of the city. In Assemanni's Bibliotheca Orientalis Kuwáshír and Bardashír are mentioned as separate cities, the latter being probably the old Mashíz, which as early as A.H. 582 (A.D. 1186) is spoken of in the History of Kermán as an important town. The Nestorian bishop of the province Kermán, who stood under the Metropolitan of Fars, resided at Hormúz." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. pp. 491-492.)
There does not seem any doubt as to the identity of Bardashir with the present city of Kermán. (See The Cities of Kirman in the time of Hamd-Allah Mustawfi and Marco Polo, by Guy le Strange, Jour. R. As. Soc. April, 1901, pp. 281, 290.) Hamd-Allah is the author of the Cosmography known as the Nuzhat-al-Kulub or "Heart's Delight." (Cf. Major Sykes' Persia, chap. xvi., and the Geographical Journal for February, 1902, p. 166.)—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—A MS. treatise on precious stones cited by Ouseley mentions Shebavek in Kermán as the site of a Turquoise mine. This is probably Shahr-i-Babek, about 100 miles west of the city of Kermán, and not far from Párez, where Abbott tells us there is a mine of these stones, now abandoned. Goebel, one of Khanikoff's party, found a deposit of turquoises at Taft, near Yezd. (Ouseley's Travels, I. 211; J. R. G. S. XXVI. 63-65; Khan. Mém. 203.)
["The province Kermán is still rich in turquoises. The mines of Páríz or Párez are at Chemen-i-mó-aspán, 16 miles from Páríz on the road to Bahrámábád (principal place of Rafsinján), and opposite the village or garden called Gód-i-Ahmer. These mines were worked up to a few years ago; the turquoises were of a pale blue. Other turquoises are found in the present Bardshír plain, and not far from Mashíz, on the slopes of the Chehel tan mountain, opposite a hill called the Bear Hill (tal-i-Khers). The Shehr-i-Bábek turquoise mines are at the small village Kárík, a mile from Medvár-i-Bálá, 10 miles north of Shehr-i-Bábek. They have two shafts, one of which has lately been closed by an earthquake, and were worked up to about twenty years ago. At another place, 12 miles from Shehr-i-Bábek, are seven old shafts now not worked for a long period. The stones of these mines are also of a very pale blue, and have no great value." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. 1881, p. 491.)
The finest turquoises came from Khorasan; the mines were near Maaden, about 48 miles to the north of Nishapür. (Heyd, Com. du Levant, II. p. 653; Ritter, Erdk. pp. 325-330.)
It is noticeable that Polo does not mention indigo at Kermán.—H. C.]
NOTE 3.—Edrisi says that excellent iron was produced in the "cold mountains" N.W. of Jiruft, i.e. somewhere south of the capital; and Jihán Numá, or Great Turkish Geography, that the steel mines of Niriz, on the borders of Kermán, were famous. These are also spoken of by Teixeira. Major St. John enables me to indicate their position, in the hills east of Niriz. (Edrisi, vol. i. p. 430; Hammer, Mém. lur la Perse, p. 275; Teixeira, Relaciones, p. 378; and see Map of Itineraries, No. II.)
["Marco Polo's steel mines are probably the Parpa iron mines on the road from Kermán to Shíráz, called even to-day M'aden-i-fúlád (steel mine); they are not worked now. Old Kermán weapons, daggers, swords, old stirrups, etc., made of steel, are really beautiful, and justify Marco Polo's praise of them" (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. p. 491)—H. C.]
Ondanique of the Geog. Text, Andaine of Pauthier's, Andanicum of the Latin, is an expression on which no light has been thrown since Ramusio's time. The latter often asked the Persian merchants who visited Venice, and they all agreed in stating that it was a sort of steel of such surpassing value and excellence, that in the days of yore a man who possessed a mirror, or sword, of Andanic regarded it as he would some precious jewel. This seems to me excellent evidence, and to give the true clue to the meaning of Ondanique. I have retained the latter form because it points most distinctly to what I believe to be the real word, viz. Hundwáníy, "Indian Steel."[1] (See Johnson's Pers. Dict. and De Sacy's Chrestomathie Arabe, II. 148.) In the Vocabulista Arabico, of about A.D. 1200 (Florence, 1871, p. 211), Hunduwán is explained by Ensis. Vüllers explains Hundwán as "anything peculiar to India, especially swords," and quotes from Firdúsi, "Khanjar-i-Hundwán," a hanger of Indian steel.
The like expression appears in the quotation from Edrisi below as Hindiah, and found its way into Spanish in the shapes of Alhinde, Alfinde, Alinde, first with the meaning of steel, then assuming, that of steel mirror, and finally that of metallic foil of a glass mirror. (See Dozy and Engelmann, 2d ed. pp. 144-145.) Hint or Al-hint is used in Berber also for steel. (See J. R. A. S. IX. 255.)
The sword-blades of India had a great fame over the East, and Indian steel, according to esteemed authorities, continued to be imported into Persia till days quite recent. Its fame goes back to very old times. Ctesias mentions two wonderful swords of such material that he got from the king of Persia and his mother. It is perhaps the ferrum candidum of which the Malli and Oxydracae sent a 100 talents weight as a present to Alexander.[2] Indian Iron and Steel ([Greek: sídaeros Indikòs kaì stómoma]) are mentioned in the Periplus as imports into the Abyssinian ports. Ferrum Indicum appears (at least according to one reading) among the Oriental species subject to duty in the Law of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus on that matter. Salmasius notes that among surviving Greek chemical treatises there was one [Greek: perì baphaes Indikou sidaérou], "On the Tempering of Indian Steel." Edrisi says on this subject: "The Hindus excel in the manufacture of iron, and in the preparation of those ingredients along with which it is fused to obtain that kind of soft Iron which is usually styled Indian Steel (HINDIAH).[3] They also have workshops wherein are forged the most famous sabres in the world…. It is impossible to find anything to surpass the edge that you get from Indian Steel (al-hadíd al-Hindí)."
Allusions to the famous sword-blades of India would seem to be frequent in Arabic literature. Several will be found in Hamása's collection of ancient Arabic poems translated by Freytag. The old commentator on one of these passages says: "Ut optimos gladios significet … Indicos esse dixit," and here the word used in the original is Hundwániyah. In Manger's version of Arabshah's Life of Timur are several allusions of the same kind; one, a quotation from Antar, recalls the ferrum candidum of Curtius:
In the histories, even of the Mahomedan conquest of India, the Hindu infidels are sent to Jihannam with "the well-watered blade of the Hindi sword"; or the sword is personified as "a Hindu of good family." Coming down to later days, Chardin says of the steel of Persia: "They combine it with Indian steel, which is more tractable … and is much more esteemed." Dupré, at the beginning of this century, tells us: "I used to believe … that the steel for the famous Persian sabres came from certain mines in Khorasan. But according to all the information I have obtained, I can assert that no mine of steel exists in that province. What is used for these blades comes in the shape of disks from Lahore." Pottinger names steel among the imports into Kermán from India. Elphinstone the Accurate, in his Caubul, confirms Dupré: "Indian Steel [in Afghanistan] is most prized for the material; but the best swords are made in Persia and in Syria;" and in his History of India, he repeats: "The steel of India was in request with the ancients; it is celebrated in the oldest Persian poem, and is still the material of the scimitars of Khorasan and Damascus."[4]
Klaproth, in his Asia Polyglotta, gives Andun as the Ossetish and Andan as the Wotiak, for Steel. Possibly these are essentially the same with Hundwáníy and Alhinde, pointing to India as the original source of supply. [In the Sikandar Nama, e Bará (or "Book of Alexander the Great," written A.D. 1200, by Abu Muhammad bin Yusuf bin Mu, Ayyid-i-Nizamu-'d-Din), translated by Captain H. Wilberforce Clarke (Lond., 1881, large 8vo), steel is frequently mentioned: Canto xix. 257, p. 202; xx. 12, p. 211; xlv. 38, p. 567; lviii. 32, pp. 695, 42, pp. 697, 62, 66, pp. 699; lix. 28, p. 703.—H. C.]
Avicenna, in his fifth book De Animâ, according to Roger Bacon, distinguishes three very different species of iron: "1st. Iron which is good for striking or bearing heavy strokes, and for being forged by hammer and fire, but not for cutting-tools. Of this hammers and anvils are made, and this is what we commonly call Iron simply. 2nd. That which is purer, has more heat in it, and is better adapted to take an edge and to form cutting-tools, but is not so malleable, viz. Steel. And the 3rd is that which is called ANDENA. This is less known among the Latin nations. Its special character is that like silver it is malleable and ductile under a very low degree of heat. In other properties it is intermediate between iron and steel." (Fr. R. Baconis Opera Inedita, 1859, pp. 382-383.) The same passage, apparently, of Avicenna is quoted by Vincent of Beauvais, but with considerable differences. (See Speculum Naturale, VII. ch. lii. lx., and Specul. Doctrinale, XV. ch. lxiii.) The latter author writes Alidena, and I have not been able to refer to Avicenna, so that I am doubtful whether his Andena is the same term with the Andaine of Pauthier and our Ondanique.
The popular view, at least in the Middle Ages, seems to have regarded Steel as a distinct natural species, the product of a necessarily different ore, from iron; and some such view is, I suspect, still common in the East. An old Indian officer told me of the reply of a native friend to whom he had tried to explain the conversion of iron into steel—"What! You would have me believe that if I put an ass into the furnace it will come forth a horse." And Indian Steel again seems to have been regarded as a distinct natural species from ordinary steel. It is in fact made by a peculiar but simple process, by which the iron is converted directly into cast-steel, without passing through any intermediate stage analogous to that of blister-steel. When specimens were first examined in England, chemists concluded that the steel was made direct from the ore. The Ondanique of Marco no doubt was a fine steel resembling the Indian article. (Müller's Ctesias, p. 80; Curtius, IX. 24; Müller's Geog. Gr. Min. I. 262; Digest. Novum, Lugd. 1551, Lib. XXXIX. Tit. 4; Salmas. Ex. Plinian. II. 763; Edrisi, I. 65-66; J. R. S. A. A. 387 seqq.; Hamasae Carmina, I. 526; Elliot, II. 209, 394; Reynolds's Utbi, p. 216.)
[Illustration: Texture, with Animals, etc., from a Cashmere Scarf in the Indian Museum. "De deverses maineres laborés à bestes et ausiaus mout richement."]
NOTE 4.—Paulus Jovius in the 16th century says, I know not on what authority, that Kermán was then celebrated for the fine temper of its steel in scimitars and lance-points. These were eagerly bought at high prices by the Turks, and their quality was such that one blow of a Kermán sabre would cleave an European helmet without turning the edge. And I see that the phrase, "Kermání blade" is used in poetry by Marco's contemporary Amír Khusrú of Delhi. (P. Jov. Hist. of his own Time, Bk. XIV.; Elliot, III. 537.)
There is, or was in Pottinger's time, still a great manufacture of matchlocks at Kerman; but rose-water, shawls, and carpets are the staples of the place now. Polo says nothing that points to shawl-making, but it would seem from Edrisi that some such manufacture already existed in the adjoining district of Bamm. It is possible that the "hangings" spoken of by Polo may refer to the carpets. I have seen a genuine Kermán carpet in the house of my friend, Sir Bartle Frere. It is of very short pile, very even and dense; the design, a combination of vases, birds, and floral tracery, closely resembling the illuminated frontispiece of some Persian MSS.
The shawls are inferior to those of Kashmir in exquisite softness, but scarcely in delicacy of texture and beauty of design. In 1850, their highest quality did not exceed 30 tomans (14_l._) in price. About 2200 looms were employed on the fabric. A good deal of Kermán wool called Kurk, goes viâ Bandar Abbási and Karáchi to Amritsar, where it is mixed with the genuine Tibetan wool in the shawl manufacture. Several of the articles named in the text, including pardahs ("cortines") are woven in shawl-fabric. I scarcely think, however, that Marco would have confounded woven shawl with needle embroidery. And Mr. Khanikoff states that the silk embroidery, of which Marco speaks, is still performed with great skill and beauty at Kermán. Our cut illustrates the textures figured with animals, already noticed at p. 66.
The Guebers were numerous here at the end of last century, but they are rapidly disappearing now. The Musulman of Kermán is, according to Khanikoff, an epicurean gentleman, and even in regard to wine, which is strong and plentiful, his divines are liberal. "In other parts of Persia you find the scribblings on the walls of Serais to consist of philosophical axioms, texts from the Koran, or abuse of local authorities. From Kermán to Yezd you find only rhymes in praise of fair ladies or good wine."
(Pottinger's Travels; Khanik. Mém. 186 seqq., and Notice, p. 21; Major Smith's Report; Abbott's MS. Report in F. O.; Notes by Major O. St. John, R.E.)
NOTE 5.—Parez is famous for its falcons still, and so are the districts of Aktúr and Sirján. Both Mr. Abbott and Major Smith were entertained with hawking by Persian hosts in this neighbourhood. The late Sir O. St. John identifies the bird described as the Sháhín (Falco Peregrinator), one variety of which, the Fársi, is abundant in the higher mountains of S. Persia. It is now little used in that region, the Terlán or goshawk being most valued, but a few are caught and sent for sale to the Arabs of Oman. (J. R. G. S. XXV. 50, 63, and Major St. John's Notes.)
["The fine falcons, 'with red breasts and swift of flight,' come from Páríz. They are, however, very scarce, two or three only being caught every year. A well-trained Páríz falcon costs from 30 to 50 tomans (12_l._ to 20_l._), as much as a good horse." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. p. 491.) Major Sykes, Persia, ch. xxiii., writes: "Marco Polo was evidently a keen sportsman, and his description of the Sháhin, as it is termed, cannot be improved upon." Major Sykes has a list given him by a Khán of seven hawks of the province, all black and white, except the Sháhin, which has yellow eyes, and is the third in the order of size.—H. C.]
NOTE 6.—We defer geographical remarks till the traveller reaches Hormuz.
_______________
Notes:
[1] A learned friend objects to Johnson's Hundwáníy = "Indian Steel," as too absolute; some word for steel being wanted. Even if it be so, I observe that in three places where Polo uses Ondanique (here, ch. xxi., and ch. xlii.), the phrase is always "steel and ondanique." This looks as if his mental expression were Púlád-i-Hundwáni, rendered by an idiom like Virgil's pocula et aurum.
[2] Kenrick suggests that the "bright iron" mentioned by Ezekiel among the wares of Tyre (ch. xxvii. 19) can hardly have been anything else than Indian Steel, because named with cassia and calamus.
[3] Literally rendered by Mr. Redhouse: "The Indians do well the combining of mixtures of the chemicals with which they (smelt and) cast the soft iron, and it becomes Indian (steel), being referred to India (in this expression)."
[4] In Richardson's Pers. Dict., by Johnson, we have a word Rohan, Rohina (and other forms). "The finest Indian steel, of which the most excellent swords are made; also the swords made of that steel."
Kerman is a kingdom which is also properly in Persia, and formerly it had a hereditary prince. Since the Tartars conquered the country the rule is no longer hereditary, but the Tartar sends to administer whatever lord he pleases.[NOTE 1] In this kingdom are produced the stones called turquoises in great abundance; they are found in the mountains, where they are extracted from the rocks.[NOTE 2] There are also plenty of veins of steel and Ondanique.[NOTE 3] The people are very skilful in making harness of war; their saddles, bridles, spurs, swords, bows, quivers, and arms of every kind, are very well made indeed according to the fashion of those parts. The ladies of the country and their daughters also produce exquisite needlework in the embroidery of silk stuffs in different colours, with figures of beasts and birds, trees and flowers, and a variety of other patterns. They work hangings for the use of noblemen so deftly that they are marvels to see, as well as cushions, pillows quilts, and all sorts of things.[NOTE 4]
In the mountains of Kerman are found the best falcons in the world. They are inferior in size to the Peregrine, red on the breast, under the neck, and between the thighs; their flight so swift that no bird can escape them.[NOTE 5]
On quitting the city you ride on for seven days, always finding towns, villages, and handsome dwelling-houses, so that it is very pleasant travelling; and there is excellent sport also to be had by the way in hunting and hawking. When you have ridden those seven days over a plain country, you come to a great mountain; and when you have got to the top of the pass you find a great descent which occupies some two days to go down. All along you find a variety and abundance of fruits; and in former days there were plenty of inhabited places on the road, but now there are none; and you meet with only a few people looking after their cattle at pasture. From the city of Kerman to this descent the cold in winter is so great that you can scarcely abide it, even with a great quantity of clothing.[NOTE 6]
NOTE 1.—Kermán is mentioned by Ptolemy, and also by Ammianus amongst the cities of the country so called (Carmania): "inter quas nitet Carmana omnium mater." (XXIII. 6.)
M. Pauthier's supposition that Sirján was in Polo's time the capital, is incorrect. (See N. et E. XIV. 208, 290.) Our Author's Kermán is the city still so called; and its proper name would seem to have been Kuwáshír. (See Reinaud, Mém. sur l'Inde, 171; also Sprenger P. and R. R. 77.) According to Khanikoff it is 5535 feet above the sea.
Kermán, on the fall of the Beni Búya Dynasty, in the middle of the 11th century, came into the hands of a branch of the Seljukian Turks, who retained it till the conquests of the Kings of Khwarizm, which just preceded the Mongol invasion. In 1226 the Amir Borák, a Kara Khitaian, who was governor on behalf of Jaláluddin of Khwarizm, became independent under the title of Kutlugh Sultan. [He died in 1234.] The Mongols allowed this family to retain the immediate authority, and at the time when Polo returned from China the representative of the house was a lady known as the Pádishah Khátún [who reigned from 1291], the wife successively of the Ilkhans Abaka and Kaikhatu; an ambitious, clever, and masterful woman, who put her own brother Siyurgutmish to death as a rival, and was herself, after the decease of Kaikhatu, put to death by her brother's widow and daughter [1294]. The Dynasty continued, nominally at least, to the reign of the Ilkhan Khodabanda (1304-13), when it was extinguished. [See Major Sykes' Persia, chaps, v. and xxiii.]
Kermán was a Nestorian see, under the Metropolitan of Fars. (Ilch. passim; Weil, III. 454; Lequien, II. 1256.)
["There is some confusion with regard to the names of Kermán both as a town and as a province or kingdom. We have the names Kermán, Kuwáshír, Bardshír. I should say the original name of the whole country was Kermán, the ancient Karamania. A province of this was called Kúreh-i-Ardeshír, which, being contracted, became Kuwáshír, and is spoken of as the province in which Ardeshír Bábekán, the first Sassanian monarch, resided. A part of Kúreh-i-Ardeshír was called Bardshír, or Bard-i-Ardeshír, now occasionally Bardsír, and the present city of Kermán was situated at its north-eastern corner. This town, during the Middle Ages, was called Bardshír. On a coin of Qara Arslán Beg, King of Kermán, of A.H. 462, Mr. Stanley Lane Poole reads Yazdashír instead of Bardshír. Of Al Idrísí's Yazdashír I see no mention in histories; Bardshír was the capital and the place where most of the coins were struck. Yazdashír, if such a place existed, can only have been a place of small importance. It is, perhaps, a clerical error for Bardshír; without diacritical points, both words are written alike. Later, the name of the city became Kermán, the name Bardshír reverting to the district lying south-west of it, with its principal place Mashíz. In a similar manner Mashíz was often, and is so now, called Bardshír. Another old town sometimes confused with Bardshír was Sírján or Shírján, once more important than Bardshír; it is spoken of as the capital of Kermán, of Bardshír, and of Sardsír. Its name now exists only as that of a district, with principal place S'aídábád. The history of Kermán, 'Agd-ul-'Olá, plainly says Bardshír is the capital of Kermán, and from the description of Bardshír there is no doubt of its having been the present town Kermán. It is strange that Marco Polo does not give the name of the city. In Assemanni's Bibliotheca Orientalis Kuwáshír and Bardashír are mentioned as separate cities, the latter being probably the old Mashíz, which as early as A.H. 582 (A.D. 1186) is spoken of in the History of Kermán as an important town. The Nestorian bishop of the province Kermán, who stood under the Metropolitan of Fars, resided at Hormúz." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. pp. 491-492.)
There does not seem any doubt as to the identity of Bardashir with the present city of Kermán. (See The Cities of Kirman in the time of Hamd-Allah Mustawfi and Marco Polo, by Guy le Strange, Jour. R. As. Soc. April, 1901, pp. 281, 290.) Hamd-Allah is the author of the Cosmography known as the Nuzhat-al-Kulub or "Heart's Delight." (Cf. Major Sykes' Persia, chap. xvi., and the Geographical Journal for February, 1902, p. 166.)—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—A MS. treatise on precious stones cited by Ouseley mentions Shebavek in Kermán as the site of a Turquoise mine. This is probably Shahr-i-Babek, about 100 miles west of the city of Kermán, and not far from Párez, where Abbott tells us there is a mine of these stones, now abandoned. Goebel, one of Khanikoff's party, found a deposit of turquoises at Taft, near Yezd. (Ouseley's Travels, I. 211; J. R. G. S. XXVI. 63-65; Khan. Mém. 203.)
["The province Kermán is still rich in turquoises. The mines of Páríz or Párez are at Chemen-i-mó-aspán, 16 miles from Páríz on the road to Bahrámábád (principal place of Rafsinján), and opposite the village or garden called Gód-i-Ahmer. These mines were worked up to a few years ago; the turquoises were of a pale blue. Other turquoises are found in the present Bardshír plain, and not far from Mashíz, on the slopes of the Chehel tan mountain, opposite a hill called the Bear Hill (tal-i-Khers). The Shehr-i-Bábek turquoise mines are at the small village Kárík, a mile from Medvár-i-Bálá, 10 miles north of Shehr-i-Bábek. They have two shafts, one of which has lately been closed by an earthquake, and were worked up to about twenty years ago. At another place, 12 miles from Shehr-i-Bábek, are seven old shafts now not worked for a long period. The stones of these mines are also of a very pale blue, and have no great value." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. 1881, p. 491.)
The finest turquoises came from Khorasan; the mines were near Maaden, about 48 miles to the north of Nishapür. (Heyd, Com. du Levant, II. p. 653; Ritter, Erdk. pp. 325-330.)
It is noticeable that Polo does not mention indigo at Kermán.—H. C.]
NOTE 3.—Edrisi says that excellent iron was produced in the "cold mountains" N.W. of Jiruft, i.e. somewhere south of the capital; and Jihán Numá, or Great Turkish Geography, that the steel mines of Niriz, on the borders of Kermán, were famous. These are also spoken of by Teixeira. Major St. John enables me to indicate their position, in the hills east of Niriz. (Edrisi, vol. i. p. 430; Hammer, Mém. lur la Perse, p. 275; Teixeira, Relaciones, p. 378; and see Map of Itineraries, No. II.)
["Marco Polo's steel mines are probably the Parpa iron mines on the road from Kermán to Shíráz, called even to-day M'aden-i-fúlád (steel mine); they are not worked now. Old Kermán weapons, daggers, swords, old stirrups, etc., made of steel, are really beautiful, and justify Marco Polo's praise of them" (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. p. 491)—H. C.]
Ondanique of the Geog. Text, Andaine of Pauthier's, Andanicum of the Latin, is an expression on which no light has been thrown since Ramusio's time. The latter often asked the Persian merchants who visited Venice, and they all agreed in stating that it was a sort of steel of such surpassing value and excellence, that in the days of yore a man who possessed a mirror, or sword, of Andanic regarded it as he would some precious jewel. This seems to me excellent evidence, and to give the true clue to the meaning of Ondanique. I have retained the latter form because it points most distinctly to what I believe to be the real word, viz. Hundwáníy, "Indian Steel."[1] (See Johnson's Pers. Dict. and De Sacy's Chrestomathie Arabe, II. 148.) In the Vocabulista Arabico, of about A.D. 1200 (Florence, 1871, p. 211), Hunduwán is explained by Ensis. Vüllers explains Hundwán as "anything peculiar to India, especially swords," and quotes from Firdúsi, "Khanjar-i-Hundwán," a hanger of Indian steel.
The like expression appears in the quotation from Edrisi below as Hindiah, and found its way into Spanish in the shapes of Alhinde, Alfinde, Alinde, first with the meaning of steel, then assuming, that of steel mirror, and finally that of metallic foil of a glass mirror. (See Dozy and Engelmann, 2d ed. pp. 144-145.) Hint or Al-hint is used in Berber also for steel. (See J. R. A. S. IX. 255.)
The sword-blades of India had a great fame over the East, and Indian steel, according to esteemed authorities, continued to be imported into Persia till days quite recent. Its fame goes back to very old times. Ctesias mentions two wonderful swords of such material that he got from the king of Persia and his mother. It is perhaps the ferrum candidum of which the Malli and Oxydracae sent a 100 talents weight as a present to Alexander.[2] Indian Iron and Steel ([Greek: sídaeros Indikòs kaì stómoma]) are mentioned in the Periplus as imports into the Abyssinian ports. Ferrum Indicum appears (at least according to one reading) among the Oriental species subject to duty in the Law of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus on that matter. Salmasius notes that among surviving Greek chemical treatises there was one [Greek: perì baphaes Indikou sidaérou], "On the Tempering of Indian Steel." Edrisi says on this subject: "The Hindus excel in the manufacture of iron, and in the preparation of those ingredients along with which it is fused to obtain that kind of soft Iron which is usually styled Indian Steel (HINDIAH).[3] They also have workshops wherein are forged the most famous sabres in the world…. It is impossible to find anything to surpass the edge that you get from Indian Steel (al-hadíd al-Hindí)."
Allusions to the famous sword-blades of India would seem to be frequent in Arabic literature. Several will be found in Hamása's collection of ancient Arabic poems translated by Freytag. The old commentator on one of these passages says: "Ut optimos gladios significet … Indicos esse dixit," and here the word used in the original is Hundwániyah. In Manger's version of Arabshah's Life of Timur are several allusions of the same kind; one, a quotation from Antar, recalls the ferrum candidum of Curtius:
"Albi (gladii) Indici meo in sanguine abluuntur."
In the histories, even of the Mahomedan conquest of India, the Hindu infidels are sent to Jihannam with "the well-watered blade of the Hindi sword"; or the sword is personified as "a Hindu of good family." Coming down to later days, Chardin says of the steel of Persia: "They combine it with Indian steel, which is more tractable … and is much more esteemed." Dupré, at the beginning of this century, tells us: "I used to believe … that the steel for the famous Persian sabres came from certain mines in Khorasan. But according to all the information I have obtained, I can assert that no mine of steel exists in that province. What is used for these blades comes in the shape of disks from Lahore." Pottinger names steel among the imports into Kermán from India. Elphinstone the Accurate, in his Caubul, confirms Dupré: "Indian Steel [in Afghanistan] is most prized for the material; but the best swords are made in Persia and in Syria;" and in his History of India, he repeats: "The steel of India was in request with the ancients; it is celebrated in the oldest Persian poem, and is still the material of the scimitars of Khorasan and Damascus."[4]
Klaproth, in his Asia Polyglotta, gives Andun as the Ossetish and Andan as the Wotiak, for Steel. Possibly these are essentially the same with Hundwáníy and Alhinde, pointing to India as the original source of supply. [In the Sikandar Nama, e Bará (or "Book of Alexander the Great," written A.D. 1200, by Abu Muhammad bin Yusuf bin Mu, Ayyid-i-Nizamu-'d-Din), translated by Captain H. Wilberforce Clarke (Lond., 1881, large 8vo), steel is frequently mentioned: Canto xix. 257, p. 202; xx. 12, p. 211; xlv. 38, p. 567; lviii. 32, pp. 695, 42, pp. 697, 62, 66, pp. 699; lix. 28, p. 703.—H. C.]
Avicenna, in his fifth book De Animâ, according to Roger Bacon, distinguishes three very different species of iron: "1st. Iron which is good for striking or bearing heavy strokes, and for being forged by hammer and fire, but not for cutting-tools. Of this hammers and anvils are made, and this is what we commonly call Iron simply. 2nd. That which is purer, has more heat in it, and is better adapted to take an edge and to form cutting-tools, but is not so malleable, viz. Steel. And the 3rd is that which is called ANDENA. This is less known among the Latin nations. Its special character is that like silver it is malleable and ductile under a very low degree of heat. In other properties it is intermediate between iron and steel." (Fr. R. Baconis Opera Inedita, 1859, pp. 382-383.) The same passage, apparently, of Avicenna is quoted by Vincent of Beauvais, but with considerable differences. (See Speculum Naturale, VII. ch. lii. lx., and Specul. Doctrinale, XV. ch. lxiii.) The latter author writes Alidena, and I have not been able to refer to Avicenna, so that I am doubtful whether his Andena is the same term with the Andaine of Pauthier and our Ondanique.
The popular view, at least in the Middle Ages, seems to have regarded Steel as a distinct natural species, the product of a necessarily different ore, from iron; and some such view is, I suspect, still common in the East. An old Indian officer told me of the reply of a native friend to whom he had tried to explain the conversion of iron into steel—"What! You would have me believe that if I put an ass into the furnace it will come forth a horse." And Indian Steel again seems to have been regarded as a distinct natural species from ordinary steel. It is in fact made by a peculiar but simple process, by which the iron is converted directly into cast-steel, without passing through any intermediate stage analogous to that of blister-steel. When specimens were first examined in England, chemists concluded that the steel was made direct from the ore. The Ondanique of Marco no doubt was a fine steel resembling the Indian article. (Müller's Ctesias, p. 80; Curtius, IX. 24; Müller's Geog. Gr. Min. I. 262; Digest. Novum, Lugd. 1551, Lib. XXXIX. Tit. 4; Salmas. Ex. Plinian. II. 763; Edrisi, I. 65-66; J. R. S. A. A. 387 seqq.; Hamasae Carmina, I. 526; Elliot, II. 209, 394; Reynolds's Utbi, p. 216.)
[Illustration: Texture, with Animals, etc., from a Cashmere Scarf in the Indian Museum. "De deverses maineres laborés à bestes et ausiaus mout richement."]
NOTE 4.—Paulus Jovius in the 16th century says, I know not on what authority, that Kermán was then celebrated for the fine temper of its steel in scimitars and lance-points. These were eagerly bought at high prices by the Turks, and their quality was such that one blow of a Kermán sabre would cleave an European helmet without turning the edge. And I see that the phrase, "Kermání blade" is used in poetry by Marco's contemporary Amír Khusrú of Delhi. (P. Jov. Hist. of his own Time, Bk. XIV.; Elliot, III. 537.)
There is, or was in Pottinger's time, still a great manufacture of matchlocks at Kerman; but rose-water, shawls, and carpets are the staples of the place now. Polo says nothing that points to shawl-making, but it would seem from Edrisi that some such manufacture already existed in the adjoining district of Bamm. It is possible that the "hangings" spoken of by Polo may refer to the carpets. I have seen a genuine Kermán carpet in the house of my friend, Sir Bartle Frere. It is of very short pile, very even and dense; the design, a combination of vases, birds, and floral tracery, closely resembling the illuminated frontispiece of some Persian MSS.
The shawls are inferior to those of Kashmir in exquisite softness, but scarcely in delicacy of texture and beauty of design. In 1850, their highest quality did not exceed 30 tomans (14_l._) in price. About 2200 looms were employed on the fabric. A good deal of Kermán wool called Kurk, goes viâ Bandar Abbási and Karáchi to Amritsar, where it is mixed with the genuine Tibetan wool in the shawl manufacture. Several of the articles named in the text, including pardahs ("cortines") are woven in shawl-fabric. I scarcely think, however, that Marco would have confounded woven shawl with needle embroidery. And Mr. Khanikoff states that the silk embroidery, of which Marco speaks, is still performed with great skill and beauty at Kermán. Our cut illustrates the textures figured with animals, already noticed at p. 66.
The Guebers were numerous here at the end of last century, but they are rapidly disappearing now. The Musulman of Kermán is, according to Khanikoff, an epicurean gentleman, and even in regard to wine, which is strong and plentiful, his divines are liberal. "In other parts of Persia you find the scribblings on the walls of Serais to consist of philosophical axioms, texts from the Koran, or abuse of local authorities. From Kermán to Yezd you find only rhymes in praise of fair ladies or good wine."
(Pottinger's Travels; Khanik. Mém. 186 seqq., and Notice, p. 21; Major Smith's Report; Abbott's MS. Report in F. O.; Notes by Major O. St. John, R.E.)
NOTE 5.—Parez is famous for its falcons still, and so are the districts of Aktúr and Sirján. Both Mr. Abbott and Major Smith were entertained with hawking by Persian hosts in this neighbourhood. The late Sir O. St. John identifies the bird described as the Sháhín (Falco Peregrinator), one variety of which, the Fársi, is abundant in the higher mountains of S. Persia. It is now little used in that region, the Terlán or goshawk being most valued, but a few are caught and sent for sale to the Arabs of Oman. (J. R. G. S. XXV. 50, 63, and Major St. John's Notes.)
["The fine falcons, 'with red breasts and swift of flight,' come from Páríz. They are, however, very scarce, two or three only being caught every year. A well-trained Páríz falcon costs from 30 to 50 tomans (12_l._ to 20_l._), as much as a good horse." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. p. 491.) Major Sykes, Persia, ch. xxiii., writes: "Marco Polo was evidently a keen sportsman, and his description of the Sháhin, as it is termed, cannot be improved upon." Major Sykes has a list given him by a Khán of seven hawks of the province, all black and white, except the Sháhin, which has yellow eyes, and is the third in the order of size.—H. C.]
NOTE 6.—We defer geographical remarks till the traveller reaches Hormuz.
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Notes:
[1] A learned friend objects to Johnson's Hundwáníy = "Indian Steel," as too absolute; some word for steel being wanted. Even if it be so, I observe that in three places where Polo uses Ondanique (here, ch. xxi., and ch. xlii.), the phrase is always "steel and ondanique." This looks as if his mental expression were Púlád-i-Hundwáni, rendered by an idiom like Virgil's pocula et aurum.
[2] Kenrick suggests that the "bright iron" mentioned by Ezekiel among the wares of Tyre (ch. xxvii. 19) can hardly have been anything else than Indian Steel, because named with cassia and calamus.
[3] Literally rendered by Mr. Redhouse: "The Indians do well the combining of mixtures of the chemicals with which they (smelt and) cast the soft iron, and it becomes Indian (steel), being referred to India (in this expression)."
[4] In Richardson's Pers. Dict., by Johnson, we have a word Rohan, Rohina (and other forms). "The finest Indian steel, of which the most excellent swords are made; also the swords made of that steel."
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
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CHAPTER XVIII. OF THE CITY OF CAMADI AND ITS RUINS; ALSO TOUCHING THE CARAUNA ROBBERS.
After you have ridden down hill those two days, you find yourself in a vast plain, and at the beginning thereof there is a city called CAMADI, which formerly was a great and noble place, but now is of little consequence, for the Tartars in their incursions have several times ravaged it. The plain whereof I speak is a very hot region; and the province that we now enter is called REOBARLES.
The fruits of the country are dates, pistachioes, and apples of Paradise, with others of the like not found in our cold climate. [There are vast numbers of turtledoves, attracted by the abundance of fruits, but the Saracens never take them, for they hold them in abomination.] And on this plain there is a kind of bird called francolin, but different from the francolin of other countries, for their colour is a mixture of black and white, and the feet and beak are vermilion colour.[NOTE 1]
The beasts also are peculiar; and first I will tell you of their oxen. These are very large, and all over white as snow; the hair is very short and smooth, which is owing to the heat of the country. The horns are short and thick, not sharp in the point; and between the shoulders they have a round hump some two palms high. There are no handsomer creatures in the world. And when they have to be loaded, they kneel like the camel; once the load is adjusted, they rise. Their load is a heavy one, for they are very strong animals. Then there are sheep here as big as asses; and their tails are so large and fat, that one tail shall weigh some 30 lbs. They are fine fat beasts, and afford capital mutton.[NOTE 2]
In this plain there are a number of villages and towns which have lofty walls of mud, made as a defence against the banditti,[NOTE 3] who are very numerous, and are called CARAONAS. This name is given them because they are the sons of Indian mothers by Tartar fathers. And you must know that when these Caraonas wish to make a plundering incursion, they have certain devilish enchantments whereby they do bring darkness over the face of day, insomuch that you can scarcely discern your comrade riding beside you; and this darkness they will cause to extend over a space of seven days' journey. They know the country thoroughly, and ride abreast, keeping near one another, sometimes to the number of 10,000, at other times more or fewer. In this way they extend across the whole plain that they are going to harry, and catch every living thing that is found outside of the towns and villages; man, woman, or beast, nothing can escape them! The old men whom they take in this way they butcher; the young men and the women they sell for slaves in other countries; thus the whole land is ruined, and has become well-nigh a desert.
The King of these scoundrels is called NOGODAR. This Nogodar had gone to the Court of Chagatai, who was own brother to the Great Kaan, with some 10,000 horsemen of his, and abode with him; for Chagatai was his uncle. And whilst there this Nogodar devised a most audacious enterprise, and I will tell you what it was. He left his uncle who was then in Greater Armenia, and fled with a great body of horsemen, cruel unscrupulous fellows, first through BADASHAN, and then through another province called PASHAI-DIR, and then through another called ARIORA-KESHEMUR. There he lost a great number of his people and of his horses, for the roads were very narrow and perilous. And when he had conquered all those provinces, he entered India at the extremity of a province called DALIVAR. He established himself in that city and government, which he took from the King of the country, ASEDIN SOLDAN by name, a man of great power and wealth. And there abideth Nogodar with his army, afraid of nobody, and waging war with all the Tartars in his neighbourhood.[NOTE 4]
Now that I have told you of those scoundrels and their history, I must add the fact that Messer Marco himself was all but caught by their bands in such a darkness as that I have told you of; but, as it pleased God, he got off and threw himself into a village that was hard by, called CONOSALMI. Howbeit he lost his whole company except seven persons who escaped along with him. The rest were caught, and some of them sold, some put to death.[NOTE 5]
NOTE 1.—Ramusio has "Adam's apple" for apples of Paradise. This was some kind of Citrus, though Lindley thinks it impossible to say precisely what. According to Jacques de Vitry it was a beautiful fruit of the Citron kind, in which the bite of human teeth was plainly discernible. (Note to Vulgar Errors, II. 211; Bongars, I. 1099.) Mr. Abbott speaks of this tract as "the districts (of Kermán) lying towards the South, which are termed the Ghermseer or Hot Region, where the temperature of winter resembles that of a charming spring, and where the palm, orange, and lemon-tree flourish." (MS. Report; see also J. R. G. S. XXV. 56.)
["Marco Polo's apples of Paradise are more probably the fruits of the Konár tree. There are no plantains in that part of the country. Turtle doves, now as then, are plentiful, and as they are seldom shot, and are said by the people to be unwholesome food, we can understand Marco Polo's saying that the people do not eat them." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. pp. 492-493.)—H. C.]
The Francolin here spoken of is, as Major Smith tells me, the Darráj of the Persians, the Black Partridge of English sportsmen, sometimes called the Red-legged Francolin. The Darráj is found in some parts of Egypt, where its peculiar call is interpreted by the peasantry into certain Arabic words, meaning "Sweet are the corn-ears! Praised be the Lord!" In India, Baber tells us, the call of the Black Partridge was (less piously) rendered "Shír dáram shakrak," "I've got milk and sugar!" The bird seems to be the [Greek: attagàs] of Athenaeus, a fowl "speckled like the partridge, but larger," found in Egypt and Lydia. The Greek version of its cry is the best of all: "[Greek: trìs tois kakoúrgois kaká]" ("Threefold ills to the ill-doers!"). This is really like the call of the black partridge in India as I recollect it. [Tetrao francolinus.—H. C.]
(Chrestomathie Arabe, II. 295; Baber, 320; Yonge's Atken. IX. 39.)
NOTE 2.—Abbott mentions the humped (though small) oxen in this part of Persia, and that in some of the neighbouring districts they are taught to kneel to receive the load, an accomplishment which seems to have struck Mas'udi (III. 27), who says he saw it exhibited by oxen at Rai (near modern Tehran). The Aín Akbari also ascribes it to a very fine breed in Bengal. The whimsical name Zebu, given to the humped or Indian ox in books of Zoology, was taken by Buffon from the exhibitors of such a beast at a French Fair, who probably invented it. That the humped breeds of oxen existed in this part of Asia in ancient times is shown by sculptures at Kouyunjik. (See cut below.)
[Illustration: Humped Oxen from the Assyrian Sculptures at Koyunjik.]
A letter from Agassiz, printed in the Proc. As. Soc. Bengal (1865), refers to wild "zebus," and calls the species a small one. There is no wild "zebu," and some of the breeds are of enormous size.
["White oxen, with short thick horns and a round hump between the shoulders, are now very rare between Kermán and Bender 'Abbás. They are, however, still to be found towards Belúchistán and Mekrán, and they kneel to be loaded like camels. The sheep which I saw had fine large tails; I did not, however, hear of any having so high a weight as thirty pounds." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. p. 493.)—H. C.]
The fat-tailed sheep is well known in many parts of Asia and part of Africa. It is mentioned by Ctesias, and by Aelian, who says the shepherds used to extract the tallow from the live animal, sewing up the tail again; exactly the same story is told by the Chinese Pliny, Ma Twan-lin. Marco's statements as to size do not surpass those of the admirable Kampfer: "In size they so much surpass the common sheep that it is not unusual to see them as tall as a donkey, whilst all are much more than three feet; and as to the tail I shall not exceed the truth, though I may exceed belief, if I say that it sometimes reaches 40 lbs. in weight." Captain Hutton was assured by an Afghan sheep-master that tails had occurred in his flocks weighing 12 Tabriz mans, upwards of 76 lbs.! The Afghans use the fat as an aperient, swallowing a dose of 4 to 6 lbs! Captain Hutton's friend testified that trucks to bear the sheep-tails were sometimes used among the Taimúnis (north of Herat). This may help to locate that ancient and slippery story. Josafat Barbaro says he had seen the thing, but is vague as to place. (Aelian Nat. An. III. 3, IV. 32; Amoen. Exoticae; Ferrier, H. of Afghans, p. 294; J. A. S. B. XV. 160.)
[Rabelais says (Bk. I. ch. xvi.): "Si de ce vous efmerveillez, efmerveillez vous d'advantage de la queue des béliers de la Scythie, qui pesait plus de trente livres; et des moutons de Surie, esquels fault (si Tenaud, dict vray) affuster une charrette au cul, pour la porter tant qu'elle est longue et pesante." (See G. Capus, A travers le roy. de Tamerlan, pp. 21-23, on the fat sheep.)—H. C.]
NOTE 3.—The word rendered banditti is in Pauthier Carans, in G. Text Caraunes, in the Latin "a scaranis et malandrinis." The last is no doubt correct, standing for the old Italian Scherani, bandits. (See Cathay, p. 287, note.)
NOTE 4.—This is a knotty subject, and needs a long note.
The KARAUNAHS are mentioned often in the histories of the Mongol regime in Persia, first as a Mongol tribe forming a Tuman, i.e. a division or corps of 10,000 in the Mongol army (and I suspect it was the phrase the Tuman of the Karaunahs in Marco's mind that suggested his repeated use of the number 10,000 in speaking of them); and afterwards as daring and savage freebooters, scouring the Persian provinces, and having their headquarters on the Eastern frontiers of Persia. They are described as having had their original seats on the mountains north of the Chinese wall near Karaún Jidun or Khidun; and their special accomplishment in war was the use of Naphtha Fire. Rashiduddin mentions the Karánut as a branch of the great Mongol tribe of the Kunguráts, who certainly had their seat in the vicinity named, so these may possibly be connected with the Karaunahs. The same author says that the Tuman of the Karaunahs formed the Injú or peculium of Arghún Khan.
Wassáf calls them "a kind of goblins rather than human beings, the most daring of all the Mongols"; and Mirkhond speaks in like terms.
Dr. Bird of Bombay, in discussing some of the Indo-Scythic coins which bear the word Korano attached to the prince's name, asserts this to stand for the name of the Karaunah, "who were a Graeco-Indo-Scythic tribe of robbers in the Punjab, who are mentioned by Marco Polo," a somewhat hasty conclusion which Pauthier adopts. There is, Quatremère observes, no mention of the Karaunahs before the Mongol invasion, and this he regards as the great obstacle to any supposition of their having been a people previously settled in Persia. Reiske, indeed, with no reference to the present subject, quotes a passage from Hamza of Ispahan, a writer of the 10th century, in which mention is made of certain troops called Karáunahs. But it seems certain that in this and other like cases the real reading was Kazáwinah, people of Kazvin. (See Reiske's Constant. Porphyrog. Bonn. ed. II. 674; Gottwaldt's Hamza Ispahanensis, p. 161; and Quatremère in J. A. sér. V. tom. xv. 173.) Ibn Batuta only once mentions the name, saying that Tughlak Sháh of Dehli was "one of those Turks called Karáunas who dwell in the mountains between Sind and Turkestan." Hammer has suggested the derivation of the word Carbine from Karáwinah (as he writes), and a link in such an etymology is perhaps furnished by the fact that in the 16th century the word Carbine was used for some kind of irregular horseman.
(Gold. Horde, 214; Ilch. I. 17, 344, etc.; Erdmann, 168, 199, etc.; J. A. S., B. X. 96; Q. R. 130; Not. et Ext. XIV. 282; I. B. III. 201; Ed. Webbe, his Travailes, p. 17, 1590. Reprinted 1868.)
As regards the account given by Marco of the origin of the Caraonas, it seems almost necessarily a mistaken one. As Khanikoff remarks, he might have confounded them with the Biluchis, whose Turanian aspect (at least as regards the Brahuis) shows a strong infusion of Turki blood, and who might be rudely described as a cross between Tartars and Indians. It is indeed an odd fact that the word Karáni (vulgo Cranny) is commonly applied in India at this day to the mixed race sprung from European fathers and Native mothers, and this might be cited in corroboration of Marsden's reference to the Sanskrit Karana, but I suspect the coincidence arises in another way. Karana is the name applied to a particular class of mixt blood, whose special occupation was writing and accounts. But the prior sense of the word seems to have been "clever, skilled," and hence a writer or scribe. In this sense we find Karáni applied in Ibn Batuta's day to a ship's clerk, and it is used in the same sense in the Ain Akbari. Clerkship is also the predominant occupation of the East-Indians, and hence the term Karáni is applied to them from their business, and not from their mixt blood. We shall see hereafter that there is a Tartar term Arghún, applied to fair children born of a Mongol mother and white father; it is possible that there may have been a correlative word like Karáun (from Kará, black) applied to dark children born of Mongol father and black mother, and that this led Marco to a false theory.
[Major Sykes (Persia) devotes a chapter (xxiv.) to The Karwán Expedition in which he says: "Is it not possible that the Karwánis are the Caraonas of Marco Polo? They are distinct from the surrounding
Baluchis, and pay no tribute."—H. C.]
[Illustration: Portrait of a Hazára.]
Let us turn now to the name of Nogodar. Contemporaneously with the Karaunahs we have frequent mention of predatory bands known as Nigúdaris, who seem to be distinguished from the Karaunahs, but had a like character for truculence. Their headquarters were about Sijistán, and Quatremère seems disposed to look upon them as a tribe indigenous in that quarter. Hammer says they were originally the troops of Prince Nigudar, grandson of Chaghatai, and that they were a rabble of all sorts, Mongols, Turkmans, Kurds, Shúls, and what not. We hear of their revolts and disorders down to 1319, under which date Mirkhond says that there had been one-and-twenty fights with them in four years. Again we hear of them in 1336 about Herat, whilst in Baber's time they turn up as Nukdari, fairly established as tribes in the mountainous tracts of Karnúd and Ghúr, west of Kabul, and coupled with the Hazáras, who still survive both in name and character. "Among both," says Baber, "there are some who speak the Mongol language." Hazáras and Takdaris (read Nukdaris) again occur coupled in the History of Sind. (See Elliot, I. 303-304.) [On the struggle against Timur of Toumen, veteran chief of the Nikoudrians (1383-84), see Major David Price's Mahommedan History, London, 1821, vol. iii. pp. 47-49, H. C.] In maps of the 17th century, as of Hondius and Blaeuw, we find the mountains north of Kabul termed Nochdarizari, in which we cannot miss the combination Nigudar-Hazárah, whencesoever it was got. The Hazáras are eminently Mongol in feature to this day, and it is very probable that they or some part of them are the descendants of the Karáunahs or the Nigudaris, or of both, and that the origination of the bands so called, from the scum of the Mongol inundation, is thus in degree confirmed. The Hazáras generally are said to speak an old dialect of Persian. But one tribe in Western Afghanistan retains both the name of Mongols and a language of which six-sevenths (judging from a vocabulary published by Major Leech) appear to be Mongol. Leech says, too, that the Hazáras generally are termed Moghals by the Ghilzais. It is worthy of notice that Abu'l Fázl, who also mentions the Nukdaris among the nomad tribes of Kabul, says the Hazáras were the remains of the Chaghataian army which Mangu Kaan sent to the aid of Hulaku, under the command of Nigudar Oghlan. (Not. et Ext. XIV. 284; Ilch. I. 284, 309, etc,; Baber, 134, 136, 140; J. As. sér. IV. tom. iv. 98; Ayeen Akbery, II. 192-193.)
So far, excepting as to the doubtful point of the relation between Karáunahs and Nigudaris, and as to the origin of the former, we have a general accordance with Polo's representations. But it is not very easy to identify with certainty the inroad on India to which he alludes, or the person intended by Nogodar, nephew of Chaghatai. It seems as if two persons of that name had each contributed something to Marco's history.
We find in Hammer and D'Ohsson that one of the causes which led to the war between Barka Khan and Hulaku in 1262 (see above, Prologue, ch. ii.) was the violent end that had befallen three princes of the House of Juji, who had accompanied Hulaku to Persia in command of the contingent of that House. When war actually broke out, the contingent made their escape from Persia. One party gained Kipchak by way of Derbend; another, in greater force, led by NIGUDAR and Onguja, escaped to Khorasan, pursued by the troops of Hulaku, and thence eastward, where they seized upon Ghazni and other districts bordering on India.
But again: Nigudar Aghul, or Oghlan, son of (the younger) Juji, son of Chaghatai, was the leader of the Chaghataian contingent in Hulaku's expedition, and was still attached to the Mongol-Persian army in 1269, when Borrak Khan, of the House of Chaghatai, was meditating war against his kinsman, Abaka of Persia. Borrak sent to the latter an ambassador, who was the bearer of a secret message to Prince Nigudar, begging him not to serve against the head of his own House. Nigudar, upon this, made a pretext of retiring to his own headquarters in Georgia, hoping to reach Borrak's camp by way of Derbend. He was, however, intercepted, and lost many of his people. With 1000 horse he took refuge in Georgia, but was refused an asylum, and was eventually captured by Abaka's commander on that frontier. His officers were executed, his troops dispersed among Abaka's army, and his own life spared under surveillance. I find no more about him. In 1278 Hammer speaks of him as dead, and of the Nigudarian bands as having been formed out of his troops. But authority is not given.
The second Nigudar is evidently the one to whom Abu'l Fázl alludes. Khanikoff assumes that the Nigudar who went off towards India about 1260 (he puts the date earlier) was Nigudar, the grandson of Chaghatai, but he takes no notice of the second story just quoted.
In the former story we have bands under Nigudar going off by Ghazni, and conquering country on the Indian frontier. In the latter we have Nigudar, a descendant of Chaghatai, trying to escape from his camp on the frontier of Great Armenia. Supposing the Persian historians to be correct, it looks as if Marco had rolled two stories into one.
Some other passages may be cited before quitting this part of the subject. A chronicle of Herat, translated by Barbier de Meynard, says, under 1298: "The King Fakhruddin (of Herat) had the imprudence to authorise the Amir Nigudar to establish himself in a quarter of the city, with 300 adventurers from 'Irak. This little troop made frequent raids in Kuhistan, Sijistan, Farrah, etc., spreading terror. Khodabanda, at the request of his brother Ghazan Khan, came from Mazanderan to demand the immediate surrender of these brigands," etc. And in the account of the tremendous foray of the Chaghataian Prince Kotlogh Shah, on the east and south of Persia in 1299, we find one of his captains called Nigudar Bahadur. (Gold. Horde, 146, 157, 164; D'Ohsson, IV. 378 seqq., 433 seqq., 513 seqq.; Ilch. I. 216, 261, 284; II. 104; J. A. sér. V. tom. xvii. 455-456, 507; Khan. Notice, 31.)
As regards the route taken by Prince Nogodar in his incursion into India, we have no difficulty with BADAKHSHAN. PASHAI-DIR is a copulate name; the former part, as we shall see reason to believe hereafter, representing the country between the Hindu Kush and the Kabul River (see infra, ch. xxx.); the latter (as Pauthier already has pointed out), DIR, the chief town of Panjkora, in the hill country north of Peshawar. In Ariora-Keshemur the first portion only is perplexing. I will mention the most probable of the solutions that have occurred to me, and a second, due to that eminent archaeologist, General A. Cunningham. (1) Ariora may be some corrupt or Mongol form of Aryavartta, a sacred name applied to the Holy Lands of Indian Buddhism, of which Kashmir was eminently one to the Northern Buddhists. Oron, in Mongol, is a Region or Realm, and may have taken the place of Vartta, giving Aryoron or Ariora. (2) "Ariora," General Cunningham writes, "I take to be the Harhaura of Sanscrit—i.e. the Western Panjáb. Harhaura was the North-Western Division of the Nava- Khanda, or Nine Divisions of Ancient India. It is mentioned between Sindhu-Sauvira in the west (i.e. Sind), and Madra in the north (i.e. the Eastern Panjáb, which is still called Madar-Des). The name of Harhaura is, I think, preserved in the Haro River. Now, the Sind-Sagor Doab formed a portion of the kingdom of Kashmir, and the joint names, like those of Sindhu-Sauvira, describe only one State." The names of the Nine Divisions in question are given by the celebrated astronomer, Varaha Mihira, who lived in the beginning of the 6th century, and are repeated by Al Biruni. (See Reinaud, Mém. sur l'Inde, p. 116.) The only objection to this happy solution seems to lie in Al Biruni's remark, that the names in question were in general no longer used even in his time (A.D. 1030).
There can be no doubt that Asidin Soldan is, as Khanikoff has said, Ghaiassuddin Balban, Sultan of Delhi from 1266 to 1286, and for years before that a man of great power in India, and especially in the Panjáb, of which he had in the reign of Ruknuddin (1236) held independent possession.
Firishta records several inroads of Mongols in the Panjáb during the reign of Ghaiassuddin, in withstanding one of which that King's eldest son was slain; and there are constant indications of their presence in Sind till the end of the century. But we find in that historian no hint of the chief circumstances of this part of the story, viz., the conquest of Kashmir and the occupation of Dalivar or Dilivar (G. T.), evidently (whatever its identity) in the plains of India. I do find, however, in the history of Kashmir, as given by Lassen (III. 1138), that in the end of 1259, Lakshamana Deva, King of Kashmir, was killed in a campaign against the Turushka (Turks or Tartars), and that their leader, who is called Kajjala, got hold of the country and held it till 1287.[1] It is difficult not to connect this both with Polo's story and with the escapade of Nigudar about 1260, noting also that this occupation of Kashmir extended through the whole reign of Ghaiassuddin.
We seem to have a memory of Polo's story preserved in one of Elliot's extracts from Wassáf, which states that in 708 (A.D. 1308), after a great defeat of a Mongol inroad which had passed the Ganges, Sultan Ala'uddin Khilji ordered a pillar of Mongol heads to be raised before the Badáun gate, "as was done with the Nigudari Moghuls" (III. 48).
We still have to account for the occupation and locality of Dalivar; Marsden supposed it to be Lahore; Khanikoff considers it to be Diráwal, the ancient desert capital of the Bhattis, properly (according to Tod) Deoráwal, but by a transposition common in India, as it is in Italy, sometimes called Diláwar, in the modern State of Bháwalpúr. But General Cunningham suggests a more probable locality in DILÁWAR on the west bank of the Jelam, close to Dárápúr, and opposite to Mung. These two sites, Diláwar-Dárápúr on the west bank, and Mung on the east, are identified by General Cunningham (I believe justly) with Alexander's Bucephala and Nicaea. The spot, which is just opposite the battlefield of Chiliánwála, was visited (15th December, 1868) at my request, by my friend Colonel R. Maclagan, R.E. He writes: "The present village of Diláwar stands a little above the town of Dárápúr (I mean on higher ground), looking down on Dárápúr and on the river, and on the cultivated and wooded plain along the river bank. The remains of the Old Diláwar, in the form of quantities of large bricks, cover the low round-backed spurs and knolls of the broken rocky hills around the present village, but principally on the land side. They cover a large area of very irregular character, and may clearly be held to represent a very considerable town. There are no indications of the form of buildings,… but simply large quantities of large bricks, which for a long time have been carried away and used for modern buildings…. After rain coins are found on the surface…. There can be no doubt of a very large extent of ground, of very irregular and uninviting character, having been covered at some time with buildings. The position on the Jelam would answer well for the Diláwar which the Mongol invaders took and held…. The strange thing is that the name should not be mentioned (I believe it is not) by any of the well-known Mahomedan historians of India. So much for Diláwar…. The people have no traditions. But there are the remains; and there is the name, borne by the existing village on part of the old site." I had come to the conclusion that this was almost certainly Polo's Dalivar, and had mapped it as such, before I read certain passages in the History of Zíyáuddín Barni, which have been translated by Professor Dowson for the third volume of Elliot's India. When the comrades of Ghaiassuddin Balban urged him to conquests, the Sultan pointed to the constant danger from the Mongols,[2] saying: "These accursed wretches have heard of the wealth and condition of Hindustan, and have set their hearts upon conquering and plundering it. They have taken and plundered Lahor within my territories, and no year passes that they do not come here and plunder the villages…. They even talk about the conquest and sack of Delhi." And under a later date the historian says: "The Sultan… marched to Lahor, and ordered the rebuilding of the fort which the Mughals had destroyed in the reigns of the sons of Shamsuddin. The towns and villages of Lahor which the Mughals had devastated and laid waste he repeopled." Considering these passages, and the fact that Polo had no personal knowledge of Upper India, I now think it probable that Marsden was right, and that Dilivar is really a misunderstanding of "Città di Livar" for Lahàwar or Lahore.
The Magical darkness which Marco ascribes to the evil arts of the Karaunas is explained by Khanikoff from the phenomenon of Dry Fog, which he has often experienced in Khorasan, combined with the Dust Storm with which we are familiar in Upper India. In Sind these phenomena often produce a great degree of darkness. During a battle fought between the armies of Sindh and Kachh in 1762, such a fog came on, obscuring the light of day for some six hours, during which the armies were intermixed with one another and fighting desperately. When the darkness dispersed they separated, and the consternation of both parties was so great at the events of the day that both made a precipitate retreat. In 1844 this battle was still spoken of with wonder. (J. Bomb. Br. R. A. S. I. 423.)
Major St. John has given a note on his own experience of these curious Kermán fogs (see Ocean Highways, 1872, p. 286): "Not a breath of air was stirring, and the whole effect was most curious, and utterly unlike any other fog I have seen. No deposit of dust followed, and the feeling of the air was decidedly damp. I unfortunately could not get my hygrometer till the fog had cleared away."
[General Houtum-Schindler, l.c. p. 493, writes: "The magical darkness might, as Colonel Yule supposes, be explained by the curious dry fogs or dust storms, often occurring in the neighbourhood of Kermán, but it must be remarked that Marco Polo was caught in one of these storms down in Jíruft, where, according to the people I questioned, such storms now never occur. On the 29th of September, 1879, at Kermán, a high wind began to blow from S.S.W. at about 5 P.M. First there came thick heavy clouds of dust with a few drops of rain. The heavy dust then settled down, the lighter particles remained in the air, forming a dry fog of such density that large objects, like houses, trees, etc., could not even faintly be distinguished at a distance of a hundred paces. The barometers suffered no change, the three I had with me remained in statu quo." "The heat is over by the middle of September, and after the autumnal equinox, there are a few days of what is best described as a dense dry fog. This was undoubtedly the haze referred to by Marco Polo." (Major Sykes, ch. iv.) —H. C.]
Richthofen's remarkable exposition of the phenomena of the löss in North China, and of the sub-aerial deposits of the steppes and of Central Asia throws some light on this. But this hardly applies to St John's experience of "no deposit of dust." (See Richthofen, China, pp. 96-97 s. MS. Note, H. Y.)
The belief that such opportune phenomena were produced by enchantment was a thoroughly Tartar one. D'Herbelot relates (art. Giagathai) that in an action with a rebel called Mahomed Tarabi, the Mongols were encompassed by a dust storm which they attributed to enchantment on the part of the enemy, and it so discouraged them that they took to flight.
NOTE 5.—The specification that only seven were saved from Marco's company is peculiar to Pauthier's Text, not appearing in the G. T.
Several names compounded of Salm or Salmi occur on the dry lands on the borders of Kermán. Edrisi, however (I. p. 428), names a place called KANÁT-UL-SHÁM as the first march in going from Jiruft to Walashjird. Walashjird is, I imagine, represented by Galashkird, Major R. Smith's third march from Jiruft (see my Map of Routes from Kermán to Hormuz); and as such an indication agrees with the view taken below of Polo's route, I am strongly disposed to identify Kanát-ul-Shám with his castello or walled village of Canosalmi.
["Marco Polo's Conosalmi, where he was attacked by robbers and lost the greater part of his men, is perhaps the ruined town or village Kamasal (Kahn-i-asal = the honey canal), near Kahnúj-i-pancheh and Vakílábád in Jíruft. It lies on the direct road between Shehr-i-Daqíánús (Camadi) and the Nevergún Pass. The road goes in an almost due southerly direction. The Nevergún Pass accords with Marco Polo's description of it; it is very difficult, on account of the many great blocks of sandstone scattered upon it. Its proximity to the Bashakird mountains and Mekrán easily accounts for the prevalence of robbers, who infested the place in Marco Polo's time. At the end of the Pass lies the large village Shamíl, with an old fort; the distance thence to the site of Hormúz or Bender 'Abbás (lying more to the west) is 52 miles, two days' march. The climate of Bender 'Abbás is very bad, strangers speedily fall sick, two of my men died there, all the others were seriously ill." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. pp. 495-496.) Major Sykes (ch. xxiii.) says: "Two marches from Camadi was Kahn-i-Panchur, and a stage beyond it lay the ruins of Fariáb or Pariáb, which was once a great city, and was destroyed by a flood, according to local legend. It may have been Alexander's Salmous, as it is about the right distance from the coast, and if so, could not have been Marco's Cono Salmi. Continuing on, Galashkird mentioned by Edrisi, is the next stage."—H. C.]
The raids of the Mekranis and Biluchis long preceded those of the Karaunas, for they were notable even in the time of Mahmud of Ghazni, and they have continued to our own day to be prosecuted nearly on the same stage and in the same manner. About 1721, 4000 horsemen of this description plundered the town of Bander Abbasi, whilst Captain Alex. Hamilton was in the port; and Abbott, in 1850, found the dread of Bilúch robbers to extend almost to the gates of Ispahan. A striking account of the Bilúch robbers and their characteristics is given by General Ferrier. (See Hamilton, I. 109; J. R. G. S. XXV.; Khanikoff's Mémoire; Macd. Kinneir, 196; Caravan Journeys, p. 437 seq.)
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Notes:
[1] Khajlak is mentioned as a leader of the Mongol raids in India by the poet Amir Khusrú (A.D. 1289; see Elliot III. 527).
[2] Professor Cowell compares the Mongol inroads in the latter part of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century, in their incessant recurrence, to the incursions of the Danes in England. A passage in Wassáf (Elliot, III. 38) shows that the Mongols were, circa 1254-55, already in occupation of Sodia on the Chenab, and districts adjoining.
After you have ridden down hill those two days, you find yourself in a vast plain, and at the beginning thereof there is a city called CAMADI, which formerly was a great and noble place, but now is of little consequence, for the Tartars in their incursions have several times ravaged it. The plain whereof I speak is a very hot region; and the province that we now enter is called REOBARLES.
The fruits of the country are dates, pistachioes, and apples of Paradise, with others of the like not found in our cold climate. [There are vast numbers of turtledoves, attracted by the abundance of fruits, but the Saracens never take them, for they hold them in abomination.] And on this plain there is a kind of bird called francolin, but different from the francolin of other countries, for their colour is a mixture of black and white, and the feet and beak are vermilion colour.[NOTE 1]
The beasts also are peculiar; and first I will tell you of their oxen. These are very large, and all over white as snow; the hair is very short and smooth, which is owing to the heat of the country. The horns are short and thick, not sharp in the point; and between the shoulders they have a round hump some two palms high. There are no handsomer creatures in the world. And when they have to be loaded, they kneel like the camel; once the load is adjusted, they rise. Their load is a heavy one, for they are very strong animals. Then there are sheep here as big as asses; and their tails are so large and fat, that one tail shall weigh some 30 lbs. They are fine fat beasts, and afford capital mutton.[NOTE 2]
In this plain there are a number of villages and towns which have lofty walls of mud, made as a defence against the banditti,[NOTE 3] who are very numerous, and are called CARAONAS. This name is given them because they are the sons of Indian mothers by Tartar fathers. And you must know that when these Caraonas wish to make a plundering incursion, they have certain devilish enchantments whereby they do bring darkness over the face of day, insomuch that you can scarcely discern your comrade riding beside you; and this darkness they will cause to extend over a space of seven days' journey. They know the country thoroughly, and ride abreast, keeping near one another, sometimes to the number of 10,000, at other times more or fewer. In this way they extend across the whole plain that they are going to harry, and catch every living thing that is found outside of the towns and villages; man, woman, or beast, nothing can escape them! The old men whom they take in this way they butcher; the young men and the women they sell for slaves in other countries; thus the whole land is ruined, and has become well-nigh a desert.
The King of these scoundrels is called NOGODAR. This Nogodar had gone to the Court of Chagatai, who was own brother to the Great Kaan, with some 10,000 horsemen of his, and abode with him; for Chagatai was his uncle. And whilst there this Nogodar devised a most audacious enterprise, and I will tell you what it was. He left his uncle who was then in Greater Armenia, and fled with a great body of horsemen, cruel unscrupulous fellows, first through BADASHAN, and then through another province called PASHAI-DIR, and then through another called ARIORA-KESHEMUR. There he lost a great number of his people and of his horses, for the roads were very narrow and perilous. And when he had conquered all those provinces, he entered India at the extremity of a province called DALIVAR. He established himself in that city and government, which he took from the King of the country, ASEDIN SOLDAN by name, a man of great power and wealth. And there abideth Nogodar with his army, afraid of nobody, and waging war with all the Tartars in his neighbourhood.[NOTE 4]
Now that I have told you of those scoundrels and their history, I must add the fact that Messer Marco himself was all but caught by their bands in such a darkness as that I have told you of; but, as it pleased God, he got off and threw himself into a village that was hard by, called CONOSALMI. Howbeit he lost his whole company except seven persons who escaped along with him. The rest were caught, and some of them sold, some put to death.[NOTE 5]
NOTE 1.—Ramusio has "Adam's apple" for apples of Paradise. This was some kind of Citrus, though Lindley thinks it impossible to say precisely what. According to Jacques de Vitry it was a beautiful fruit of the Citron kind, in which the bite of human teeth was plainly discernible. (Note to Vulgar Errors, II. 211; Bongars, I. 1099.) Mr. Abbott speaks of this tract as "the districts (of Kermán) lying towards the South, which are termed the Ghermseer or Hot Region, where the temperature of winter resembles that of a charming spring, and where the palm, orange, and lemon-tree flourish." (MS. Report; see also J. R. G. S. XXV. 56.)
["Marco Polo's apples of Paradise are more probably the fruits of the Konár tree. There are no plantains in that part of the country. Turtle doves, now as then, are plentiful, and as they are seldom shot, and are said by the people to be unwholesome food, we can understand Marco Polo's saying that the people do not eat them." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. pp. 492-493.)—H. C.]
The Francolin here spoken of is, as Major Smith tells me, the Darráj of the Persians, the Black Partridge of English sportsmen, sometimes called the Red-legged Francolin. The Darráj is found in some parts of Egypt, where its peculiar call is interpreted by the peasantry into certain Arabic words, meaning "Sweet are the corn-ears! Praised be the Lord!" In India, Baber tells us, the call of the Black Partridge was (less piously) rendered "Shír dáram shakrak," "I've got milk and sugar!" The bird seems to be the [Greek: attagàs] of Athenaeus, a fowl "speckled like the partridge, but larger," found in Egypt and Lydia. The Greek version of its cry is the best of all: "[Greek: trìs tois kakoúrgois kaká]" ("Threefold ills to the ill-doers!"). This is really like the call of the black partridge in India as I recollect it. [Tetrao francolinus.—H. C.]
(Chrestomathie Arabe, II. 295; Baber, 320; Yonge's Atken. IX. 39.)
NOTE 2.—Abbott mentions the humped (though small) oxen in this part of Persia, and that in some of the neighbouring districts they are taught to kneel to receive the load, an accomplishment which seems to have struck Mas'udi (III. 27), who says he saw it exhibited by oxen at Rai (near modern Tehran). The Aín Akbari also ascribes it to a very fine breed in Bengal. The whimsical name Zebu, given to the humped or Indian ox in books of Zoology, was taken by Buffon from the exhibitors of such a beast at a French Fair, who probably invented it. That the humped breeds of oxen existed in this part of Asia in ancient times is shown by sculptures at Kouyunjik. (See cut below.)
[Illustration: Humped Oxen from the Assyrian Sculptures at Koyunjik.]
A letter from Agassiz, printed in the Proc. As. Soc. Bengal (1865), refers to wild "zebus," and calls the species a small one. There is no wild "zebu," and some of the breeds are of enormous size.
["White oxen, with short thick horns and a round hump between the shoulders, are now very rare between Kermán and Bender 'Abbás. They are, however, still to be found towards Belúchistán and Mekrán, and they kneel to be loaded like camels. The sheep which I saw had fine large tails; I did not, however, hear of any having so high a weight as thirty pounds." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. p. 493.)—H. C.]
The fat-tailed sheep is well known in many parts of Asia and part of Africa. It is mentioned by Ctesias, and by Aelian, who says the shepherds used to extract the tallow from the live animal, sewing up the tail again; exactly the same story is told by the Chinese Pliny, Ma Twan-lin. Marco's statements as to size do not surpass those of the admirable Kampfer: "In size they so much surpass the common sheep that it is not unusual to see them as tall as a donkey, whilst all are much more than three feet; and as to the tail I shall not exceed the truth, though I may exceed belief, if I say that it sometimes reaches 40 lbs. in weight." Captain Hutton was assured by an Afghan sheep-master that tails had occurred in his flocks weighing 12 Tabriz mans, upwards of 76 lbs.! The Afghans use the fat as an aperient, swallowing a dose of 4 to 6 lbs! Captain Hutton's friend testified that trucks to bear the sheep-tails were sometimes used among the Taimúnis (north of Herat). This may help to locate that ancient and slippery story. Josafat Barbaro says he had seen the thing, but is vague as to place. (Aelian Nat. An. III. 3, IV. 32; Amoen. Exoticae; Ferrier, H. of Afghans, p. 294; J. A. S. B. XV. 160.)
[Rabelais says (Bk. I. ch. xvi.): "Si de ce vous efmerveillez, efmerveillez vous d'advantage de la queue des béliers de la Scythie, qui pesait plus de trente livres; et des moutons de Surie, esquels fault (si Tenaud, dict vray) affuster une charrette au cul, pour la porter tant qu'elle est longue et pesante." (See G. Capus, A travers le roy. de Tamerlan, pp. 21-23, on the fat sheep.)—H. C.]
NOTE 3.—The word rendered banditti is in Pauthier Carans, in G. Text Caraunes, in the Latin "a scaranis et malandrinis." The last is no doubt correct, standing for the old Italian Scherani, bandits. (See Cathay, p. 287, note.)
NOTE 4.—This is a knotty subject, and needs a long note.
The KARAUNAHS are mentioned often in the histories of the Mongol regime in Persia, first as a Mongol tribe forming a Tuman, i.e. a division or corps of 10,000 in the Mongol army (and I suspect it was the phrase the Tuman of the Karaunahs in Marco's mind that suggested his repeated use of the number 10,000 in speaking of them); and afterwards as daring and savage freebooters, scouring the Persian provinces, and having their headquarters on the Eastern frontiers of Persia. They are described as having had their original seats on the mountains north of the Chinese wall near Karaún Jidun or Khidun; and their special accomplishment in war was the use of Naphtha Fire. Rashiduddin mentions the Karánut as a branch of the great Mongol tribe of the Kunguráts, who certainly had their seat in the vicinity named, so these may possibly be connected with the Karaunahs. The same author says that the Tuman of the Karaunahs formed the Injú or peculium of Arghún Khan.
Wassáf calls them "a kind of goblins rather than human beings, the most daring of all the Mongols"; and Mirkhond speaks in like terms.
Dr. Bird of Bombay, in discussing some of the Indo-Scythic coins which bear the word Korano attached to the prince's name, asserts this to stand for the name of the Karaunah, "who were a Graeco-Indo-Scythic tribe of robbers in the Punjab, who are mentioned by Marco Polo," a somewhat hasty conclusion which Pauthier adopts. There is, Quatremère observes, no mention of the Karaunahs before the Mongol invasion, and this he regards as the great obstacle to any supposition of their having been a people previously settled in Persia. Reiske, indeed, with no reference to the present subject, quotes a passage from Hamza of Ispahan, a writer of the 10th century, in which mention is made of certain troops called Karáunahs. But it seems certain that in this and other like cases the real reading was Kazáwinah, people of Kazvin. (See Reiske's Constant. Porphyrog. Bonn. ed. II. 674; Gottwaldt's Hamza Ispahanensis, p. 161; and Quatremère in J. A. sér. V. tom. xv. 173.) Ibn Batuta only once mentions the name, saying that Tughlak Sháh of Dehli was "one of those Turks called Karáunas who dwell in the mountains between Sind and Turkestan." Hammer has suggested the derivation of the word Carbine from Karáwinah (as he writes), and a link in such an etymology is perhaps furnished by the fact that in the 16th century the word Carbine was used for some kind of irregular horseman.
(Gold. Horde, 214; Ilch. I. 17, 344, etc.; Erdmann, 168, 199, etc.; J. A. S., B. X. 96; Q. R. 130; Not. et Ext. XIV. 282; I. B. III. 201; Ed. Webbe, his Travailes, p. 17, 1590. Reprinted 1868.)
As regards the account given by Marco of the origin of the Caraonas, it seems almost necessarily a mistaken one. As Khanikoff remarks, he might have confounded them with the Biluchis, whose Turanian aspect (at least as regards the Brahuis) shows a strong infusion of Turki blood, and who might be rudely described as a cross between Tartars and Indians. It is indeed an odd fact that the word Karáni (vulgo Cranny) is commonly applied in India at this day to the mixed race sprung from European fathers and Native mothers, and this might be cited in corroboration of Marsden's reference to the Sanskrit Karana, but I suspect the coincidence arises in another way. Karana is the name applied to a particular class of mixt blood, whose special occupation was writing and accounts. But the prior sense of the word seems to have been "clever, skilled," and hence a writer or scribe. In this sense we find Karáni applied in Ibn Batuta's day to a ship's clerk, and it is used in the same sense in the Ain Akbari. Clerkship is also the predominant occupation of the East-Indians, and hence the term Karáni is applied to them from their business, and not from their mixt blood. We shall see hereafter that there is a Tartar term Arghún, applied to fair children born of a Mongol mother and white father; it is possible that there may have been a correlative word like Karáun (from Kará, black) applied to dark children born of Mongol father and black mother, and that this led Marco to a false theory.
[Major Sykes (Persia) devotes a chapter (xxiv.) to The Karwán Expedition in which he says: "Is it not possible that the Karwánis are the Caraonas of Marco Polo? They are distinct from the surrounding
Baluchis, and pay no tribute."—H. C.]
[Illustration: Portrait of a Hazára.]
Let us turn now to the name of Nogodar. Contemporaneously with the Karaunahs we have frequent mention of predatory bands known as Nigúdaris, who seem to be distinguished from the Karaunahs, but had a like character for truculence. Their headquarters were about Sijistán, and Quatremère seems disposed to look upon them as a tribe indigenous in that quarter. Hammer says they were originally the troops of Prince Nigudar, grandson of Chaghatai, and that they were a rabble of all sorts, Mongols, Turkmans, Kurds, Shúls, and what not. We hear of their revolts and disorders down to 1319, under which date Mirkhond says that there had been one-and-twenty fights with them in four years. Again we hear of them in 1336 about Herat, whilst in Baber's time they turn up as Nukdari, fairly established as tribes in the mountainous tracts of Karnúd and Ghúr, west of Kabul, and coupled with the Hazáras, who still survive both in name and character. "Among both," says Baber, "there are some who speak the Mongol language." Hazáras and Takdaris (read Nukdaris) again occur coupled in the History of Sind. (See Elliot, I. 303-304.) [On the struggle against Timur of Toumen, veteran chief of the Nikoudrians (1383-84), see Major David Price's Mahommedan History, London, 1821, vol. iii. pp. 47-49, H. C.] In maps of the 17th century, as of Hondius and Blaeuw, we find the mountains north of Kabul termed Nochdarizari, in which we cannot miss the combination Nigudar-Hazárah, whencesoever it was got. The Hazáras are eminently Mongol in feature to this day, and it is very probable that they or some part of them are the descendants of the Karáunahs or the Nigudaris, or of both, and that the origination of the bands so called, from the scum of the Mongol inundation, is thus in degree confirmed. The Hazáras generally are said to speak an old dialect of Persian. But one tribe in Western Afghanistan retains both the name of Mongols and a language of which six-sevenths (judging from a vocabulary published by Major Leech) appear to be Mongol. Leech says, too, that the Hazáras generally are termed Moghals by the Ghilzais. It is worthy of notice that Abu'l Fázl, who also mentions the Nukdaris among the nomad tribes of Kabul, says the Hazáras were the remains of the Chaghataian army which Mangu Kaan sent to the aid of Hulaku, under the command of Nigudar Oghlan. (Not. et Ext. XIV. 284; Ilch. I. 284, 309, etc,; Baber, 134, 136, 140; J. As. sér. IV. tom. iv. 98; Ayeen Akbery, II. 192-193.)
So far, excepting as to the doubtful point of the relation between Karáunahs and Nigudaris, and as to the origin of the former, we have a general accordance with Polo's representations. But it is not very easy to identify with certainty the inroad on India to which he alludes, or the person intended by Nogodar, nephew of Chaghatai. It seems as if two persons of that name had each contributed something to Marco's history.
We find in Hammer and D'Ohsson that one of the causes which led to the war between Barka Khan and Hulaku in 1262 (see above, Prologue, ch. ii.) was the violent end that had befallen three princes of the House of Juji, who had accompanied Hulaku to Persia in command of the contingent of that House. When war actually broke out, the contingent made their escape from Persia. One party gained Kipchak by way of Derbend; another, in greater force, led by NIGUDAR and Onguja, escaped to Khorasan, pursued by the troops of Hulaku, and thence eastward, where they seized upon Ghazni and other districts bordering on India.
But again: Nigudar Aghul, or Oghlan, son of (the younger) Juji, son of Chaghatai, was the leader of the Chaghataian contingent in Hulaku's expedition, and was still attached to the Mongol-Persian army in 1269, when Borrak Khan, of the House of Chaghatai, was meditating war against his kinsman, Abaka of Persia. Borrak sent to the latter an ambassador, who was the bearer of a secret message to Prince Nigudar, begging him not to serve against the head of his own House. Nigudar, upon this, made a pretext of retiring to his own headquarters in Georgia, hoping to reach Borrak's camp by way of Derbend. He was, however, intercepted, and lost many of his people. With 1000 horse he took refuge in Georgia, but was refused an asylum, and was eventually captured by Abaka's commander on that frontier. His officers were executed, his troops dispersed among Abaka's army, and his own life spared under surveillance. I find no more about him. In 1278 Hammer speaks of him as dead, and of the Nigudarian bands as having been formed out of his troops. But authority is not given.
The second Nigudar is evidently the one to whom Abu'l Fázl alludes. Khanikoff assumes that the Nigudar who went off towards India about 1260 (he puts the date earlier) was Nigudar, the grandson of Chaghatai, but he takes no notice of the second story just quoted.
In the former story we have bands under Nigudar going off by Ghazni, and conquering country on the Indian frontier. In the latter we have Nigudar, a descendant of Chaghatai, trying to escape from his camp on the frontier of Great Armenia. Supposing the Persian historians to be correct, it looks as if Marco had rolled two stories into one.
Some other passages may be cited before quitting this part of the subject. A chronicle of Herat, translated by Barbier de Meynard, says, under 1298: "The King Fakhruddin (of Herat) had the imprudence to authorise the Amir Nigudar to establish himself in a quarter of the city, with 300 adventurers from 'Irak. This little troop made frequent raids in Kuhistan, Sijistan, Farrah, etc., spreading terror. Khodabanda, at the request of his brother Ghazan Khan, came from Mazanderan to demand the immediate surrender of these brigands," etc. And in the account of the tremendous foray of the Chaghataian Prince Kotlogh Shah, on the east and south of Persia in 1299, we find one of his captains called Nigudar Bahadur. (Gold. Horde, 146, 157, 164; D'Ohsson, IV. 378 seqq., 433 seqq., 513 seqq.; Ilch. I. 216, 261, 284; II. 104; J. A. sér. V. tom. xvii. 455-456, 507; Khan. Notice, 31.)
As regards the route taken by Prince Nogodar in his incursion into India, we have no difficulty with BADAKHSHAN. PASHAI-DIR is a copulate name; the former part, as we shall see reason to believe hereafter, representing the country between the Hindu Kush and the Kabul River (see infra, ch. xxx.); the latter (as Pauthier already has pointed out), DIR, the chief town of Panjkora, in the hill country north of Peshawar. In Ariora-Keshemur the first portion only is perplexing. I will mention the most probable of the solutions that have occurred to me, and a second, due to that eminent archaeologist, General A. Cunningham. (1) Ariora may be some corrupt or Mongol form of Aryavartta, a sacred name applied to the Holy Lands of Indian Buddhism, of which Kashmir was eminently one to the Northern Buddhists. Oron, in Mongol, is a Region or Realm, and may have taken the place of Vartta, giving Aryoron or Ariora. (2) "Ariora," General Cunningham writes, "I take to be the Harhaura of Sanscrit—i.e. the Western Panjáb. Harhaura was the North-Western Division of the Nava- Khanda, or Nine Divisions of Ancient India. It is mentioned between Sindhu-Sauvira in the west (i.e. Sind), and Madra in the north (i.e. the Eastern Panjáb, which is still called Madar-Des). The name of Harhaura is, I think, preserved in the Haro River. Now, the Sind-Sagor Doab formed a portion of the kingdom of Kashmir, and the joint names, like those of Sindhu-Sauvira, describe only one State." The names of the Nine Divisions in question are given by the celebrated astronomer, Varaha Mihira, who lived in the beginning of the 6th century, and are repeated by Al Biruni. (See Reinaud, Mém. sur l'Inde, p. 116.) The only objection to this happy solution seems to lie in Al Biruni's remark, that the names in question were in general no longer used even in his time (A.D. 1030).
There can be no doubt that Asidin Soldan is, as Khanikoff has said, Ghaiassuddin Balban, Sultan of Delhi from 1266 to 1286, and for years before that a man of great power in India, and especially in the Panjáb, of which he had in the reign of Ruknuddin (1236) held independent possession.
Firishta records several inroads of Mongols in the Panjáb during the reign of Ghaiassuddin, in withstanding one of which that King's eldest son was slain; and there are constant indications of their presence in Sind till the end of the century. But we find in that historian no hint of the chief circumstances of this part of the story, viz., the conquest of Kashmir and the occupation of Dalivar or Dilivar (G. T.), evidently (whatever its identity) in the plains of India. I do find, however, in the history of Kashmir, as given by Lassen (III. 1138), that in the end of 1259, Lakshamana Deva, King of Kashmir, was killed in a campaign against the Turushka (Turks or Tartars), and that their leader, who is called Kajjala, got hold of the country and held it till 1287.[1] It is difficult not to connect this both with Polo's story and with the escapade of Nigudar about 1260, noting also that this occupation of Kashmir extended through the whole reign of Ghaiassuddin.
We seem to have a memory of Polo's story preserved in one of Elliot's extracts from Wassáf, which states that in 708 (A.D. 1308), after a great defeat of a Mongol inroad which had passed the Ganges, Sultan Ala'uddin Khilji ordered a pillar of Mongol heads to be raised before the Badáun gate, "as was done with the Nigudari Moghuls" (III. 48).
We still have to account for the occupation and locality of Dalivar; Marsden supposed it to be Lahore; Khanikoff considers it to be Diráwal, the ancient desert capital of the Bhattis, properly (according to Tod) Deoráwal, but by a transposition common in India, as it is in Italy, sometimes called Diláwar, in the modern State of Bháwalpúr. But General Cunningham suggests a more probable locality in DILÁWAR on the west bank of the Jelam, close to Dárápúr, and opposite to Mung. These two sites, Diláwar-Dárápúr on the west bank, and Mung on the east, are identified by General Cunningham (I believe justly) with Alexander's Bucephala and Nicaea. The spot, which is just opposite the battlefield of Chiliánwála, was visited (15th December, 1868) at my request, by my friend Colonel R. Maclagan, R.E. He writes: "The present village of Diláwar stands a little above the town of Dárápúr (I mean on higher ground), looking down on Dárápúr and on the river, and on the cultivated and wooded plain along the river bank. The remains of the Old Diláwar, in the form of quantities of large bricks, cover the low round-backed spurs and knolls of the broken rocky hills around the present village, but principally on the land side. They cover a large area of very irregular character, and may clearly be held to represent a very considerable town. There are no indications of the form of buildings,… but simply large quantities of large bricks, which for a long time have been carried away and used for modern buildings…. After rain coins are found on the surface…. There can be no doubt of a very large extent of ground, of very irregular and uninviting character, having been covered at some time with buildings. The position on the Jelam would answer well for the Diláwar which the Mongol invaders took and held…. The strange thing is that the name should not be mentioned (I believe it is not) by any of the well-known Mahomedan historians of India. So much for Diláwar…. The people have no traditions. But there are the remains; and there is the name, borne by the existing village on part of the old site." I had come to the conclusion that this was almost certainly Polo's Dalivar, and had mapped it as such, before I read certain passages in the History of Zíyáuddín Barni, which have been translated by Professor Dowson for the third volume of Elliot's India. When the comrades of Ghaiassuddin Balban urged him to conquests, the Sultan pointed to the constant danger from the Mongols,[2] saying: "These accursed wretches have heard of the wealth and condition of Hindustan, and have set their hearts upon conquering and plundering it. They have taken and plundered Lahor within my territories, and no year passes that they do not come here and plunder the villages…. They even talk about the conquest and sack of Delhi." And under a later date the historian says: "The Sultan… marched to Lahor, and ordered the rebuilding of the fort which the Mughals had destroyed in the reigns of the sons of Shamsuddin. The towns and villages of Lahor which the Mughals had devastated and laid waste he repeopled." Considering these passages, and the fact that Polo had no personal knowledge of Upper India, I now think it probable that Marsden was right, and that Dilivar is really a misunderstanding of "Città di Livar" for Lahàwar or Lahore.
The Magical darkness which Marco ascribes to the evil arts of the Karaunas is explained by Khanikoff from the phenomenon of Dry Fog, which he has often experienced in Khorasan, combined with the Dust Storm with which we are familiar in Upper India. In Sind these phenomena often produce a great degree of darkness. During a battle fought between the armies of Sindh and Kachh in 1762, such a fog came on, obscuring the light of day for some six hours, during which the armies were intermixed with one another and fighting desperately. When the darkness dispersed they separated, and the consternation of both parties was so great at the events of the day that both made a precipitate retreat. In 1844 this battle was still spoken of with wonder. (J. Bomb. Br. R. A. S. I. 423.)
Major St. John has given a note on his own experience of these curious Kermán fogs (see Ocean Highways, 1872, p. 286): "Not a breath of air was stirring, and the whole effect was most curious, and utterly unlike any other fog I have seen. No deposit of dust followed, and the feeling of the air was decidedly damp. I unfortunately could not get my hygrometer till the fog had cleared away."
[General Houtum-Schindler, l.c. p. 493, writes: "The magical darkness might, as Colonel Yule supposes, be explained by the curious dry fogs or dust storms, often occurring in the neighbourhood of Kermán, but it must be remarked that Marco Polo was caught in one of these storms down in Jíruft, where, according to the people I questioned, such storms now never occur. On the 29th of September, 1879, at Kermán, a high wind began to blow from S.S.W. at about 5 P.M. First there came thick heavy clouds of dust with a few drops of rain. The heavy dust then settled down, the lighter particles remained in the air, forming a dry fog of such density that large objects, like houses, trees, etc., could not even faintly be distinguished at a distance of a hundred paces. The barometers suffered no change, the three I had with me remained in statu quo." "The heat is over by the middle of September, and after the autumnal equinox, there are a few days of what is best described as a dense dry fog. This was undoubtedly the haze referred to by Marco Polo." (Major Sykes, ch. iv.) —H. C.]
Richthofen's remarkable exposition of the phenomena of the löss in North China, and of the sub-aerial deposits of the steppes and of Central Asia throws some light on this. But this hardly applies to St John's experience of "no deposit of dust." (See Richthofen, China, pp. 96-97 s. MS. Note, H. Y.)
The belief that such opportune phenomena were produced by enchantment was a thoroughly Tartar one. D'Herbelot relates (art. Giagathai) that in an action with a rebel called Mahomed Tarabi, the Mongols were encompassed by a dust storm which they attributed to enchantment on the part of the enemy, and it so discouraged them that they took to flight.
NOTE 5.—The specification that only seven were saved from Marco's company is peculiar to Pauthier's Text, not appearing in the G. T.
Several names compounded of Salm or Salmi occur on the dry lands on the borders of Kermán. Edrisi, however (I. p. 428), names a place called KANÁT-UL-SHÁM as the first march in going from Jiruft to Walashjird. Walashjird is, I imagine, represented by Galashkird, Major R. Smith's third march from Jiruft (see my Map of Routes from Kermán to Hormuz); and as such an indication agrees with the view taken below of Polo's route, I am strongly disposed to identify Kanát-ul-Shám with his castello or walled village of Canosalmi.
["Marco Polo's Conosalmi, where he was attacked by robbers and lost the greater part of his men, is perhaps the ruined town or village Kamasal (Kahn-i-asal = the honey canal), near Kahnúj-i-pancheh and Vakílábád in Jíruft. It lies on the direct road between Shehr-i-Daqíánús (Camadi) and the Nevergún Pass. The road goes in an almost due southerly direction. The Nevergún Pass accords with Marco Polo's description of it; it is very difficult, on account of the many great blocks of sandstone scattered upon it. Its proximity to the Bashakird mountains and Mekrán easily accounts for the prevalence of robbers, who infested the place in Marco Polo's time. At the end of the Pass lies the large village Shamíl, with an old fort; the distance thence to the site of Hormúz or Bender 'Abbás (lying more to the west) is 52 miles, two days' march. The climate of Bender 'Abbás is very bad, strangers speedily fall sick, two of my men died there, all the others were seriously ill." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. pp. 495-496.) Major Sykes (ch. xxiii.) says: "Two marches from Camadi was Kahn-i-Panchur, and a stage beyond it lay the ruins of Fariáb or Pariáb, which was once a great city, and was destroyed by a flood, according to local legend. It may have been Alexander's Salmous, as it is about the right distance from the coast, and if so, could not have been Marco's Cono Salmi. Continuing on, Galashkird mentioned by Edrisi, is the next stage."—H. C.]
The raids of the Mekranis and Biluchis long preceded those of the Karaunas, for they were notable even in the time of Mahmud of Ghazni, and they have continued to our own day to be prosecuted nearly on the same stage and in the same manner. About 1721, 4000 horsemen of this description plundered the town of Bander Abbasi, whilst Captain Alex. Hamilton was in the port; and Abbott, in 1850, found the dread of Bilúch robbers to extend almost to the gates of Ispahan. A striking account of the Bilúch robbers and their characteristics is given by General Ferrier. (See Hamilton, I. 109; J. R. G. S. XXV.; Khanikoff's Mémoire; Macd. Kinneir, 196; Caravan Journeys, p. 437 seq.)
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Notes:
[1] Khajlak is mentioned as a leader of the Mongol raids in India by the poet Amir Khusrú (A.D. 1289; see Elliot III. 527).
[2] Professor Cowell compares the Mongol inroads in the latter part of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century, in their incessant recurrence, to the incursions of the Danes in England. A passage in Wassáf (Elliot, III. 38) shows that the Mongols were, circa 1254-55, already in occupation of Sodia on the Chenab, and districts adjoining.
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
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CHAPTER XIX. OF THE DESCENT TO THE CITY OF HORMOS.
The Plain of which we have spoken extends in a southerly direction for five days' journey, and then you come to another descent some twenty miles in length, where the road is very bad and full of peril, for there are many robbers and bad characters about. When you have got to the foot of this descent you find another beautiful plain called the PLAIN OF FORMOSA. This extends for two days' journey; and you find in it fine streams of water with plenty of date-palms and other fruit-trees. There are also many beautiful birds, francolins, popinjays, and other kinds such as we have none of in our country. When you have ridden these two days you come to the Ocean Sea, and on the shore you find a city with a harbour which is called HORMOS.[NOTE 1] Merchants come thither from India, with ships loaded with spicery and precious stones, pearls, cloths of silk and gold, elephants' teeth, and many other wares, which they sell to the merchants of Hormos, and which these in turn carry all over the world to dispose of again. In fact, 'tis a city of immense trade. There are plenty of towns and villages under it, but it is the capital. The King is called RUOMEDAM AHOMET. It is a very sickly place, and the heat of the sun is tremendous. If any foreign merchant dies there, the King takes all his property.
In this country they make a wine of dates mixt with spices, which is very good. When any one not used to it first drinks this wine, it causes repeated and violent purging, but afterwards he is all the better for it, and gets fat upon it. The people never eat meat and wheaten bread except when they are ill, and if they take such food when they are in health it makes them ill. Their food when in health consists of dates and salt-fish (tunny, to wit) and onions, and this kind of diet they maintain in order to preserve their health.[NOTE 2]
Their ships are wretched affairs, and many of them get lost; for they have no iron fastenings, and are only stitched together with twine made from the husk of the Indian nut. They beat this husk until it becomes like horse-hair, and from that they spin twine, and with this stitch the planks of the ships together. It keeps well, and is not corroded by the sea-water, but it will not stand well in a storm. The ships are not pitched, but are rubbed with fish-oil. They have one mast, one sail, and one rudder, and have no deck, but only a cover spread over the cargo when loaded. This cover consists of hides, and on the top of these hides they put the horses which they take to India for sale. They have no iron to make nails of, and for this reason they use only wooden trenails in their shipbuilding, and then stitch the planks with twine as I have told you. Hence 'tis a perilous business to go a voyage in one of those ships, and many of them are lost, for in that Sea of India the storms are often terrible.[NOTE 3]
The people are black, and are worshippers of Mahommet. The residents avoid living in the cities, for the heat in summer is so great that it would kill them. Hence they go out (to sleep) at their gardens in the country, where there are streams and plenty of water. For all that they would not escape but for one thing that I will mention. The fact is, you see, that in summer a wind often blows across the sands which encompass the plain, so intolerably hot that it would kill everybody, were it not that when they perceive that wind coming they plunge into water up to the neck, and so abide until the wind have ceased.[NOTE 4] [And to prove the great heat of this wind, Messer Mark related a case that befell when he was there. The Lord of Hormos, not having paid his tribute to the King of Kerman the latter resolved to claim it at the time when the people of Hormos were residing away from the city. So he caused a force of 1600 horse and 5000 foot to be got ready, and sent them by the route of Reobarles to take the others by surprise. Now, it happened one day that through the fault of their guide they were not able to reach the place appointed for their night's halt, and were obliged to bivouac in a wilderness not far from Hormos. In the morning as they were starting on their march they were caught by that wind, and every man of them was suffocated, so that not one survived to carry the tidings to their Lord. When the people of Hormos heard of this they went forth to bury the bodies lest they should breed a pestilence. But when they laid hold of them by the arms to drag them to the pits, the bodies proved to be so baked, as it were, by that tremendous heat, that the arms parted from the trunks, and in the end the people had to dig graves hard by each where it lay, and so cast them in.][NOTE 5]
The people sow their wheat and barley and other corn in the month of November, and reap it in the month of March. The dates are not gathered till May, but otherwise there is no grass nor any other green thing, for the excessive heat dries up everything.
When any one dies they make a great business of the mourning, for women mourn their husbands four years. During that time they mourn at least once a day, gathering together their kinsfolk and friends and neighbours for the purpose, and making a great weeping and wailing. [And they have women who are mourners by trade, and do it for hire.]
Now, we will quit this country. I shall not, however, now go on to tell you about India; but when time and place shall suit we shall come round from the north and tell you about it. For the present, let us return by another road to the aforesaid city of Kerman, for we cannot get at those countries that I wish to tell you about except through that city.
I should tell you first, however, that King Ruomedam Ahomet of Hormos, which we are leaving, is a liegeman of the King of Kerman.[NOTE 6]
On the road by which we return from Hormos to Kerman you meet with some very fine plains, and you also find many natural hot baths; you find plenty of partridges on the road; and there are towns where victual is cheap and abundant, with quantities of dates and other fruits. The wheaten bread, however, is so bitter, owing to the bitterness of the water, that no one can eat it who is not used to it. The baths that I mentioned have excellent virtues; they cure the itch and several other diseases.[NOTE 7]
Now, then, I am going to tell you about the countries towards the north, of which you shall hear in regular order. Let us begin.
NOTE 1.—Having now arrived at HORMUZ, it is time to see what can be made of the Geography of the route from Kermán to that port.
The port of Hormuz, [which had taken the place of Kish as the most important market of the Persian Gulf (H. C.)], stood upon the mainland. A few years later it was transferred to the island which became so famous, under circumstances which are concisely related by Abulfeda:—"Hormuz is the port of Kermán, a city rich in palms, and very hot. One who has visited it in our day tells me that the ancient Hormuz was devastated by the incursions of the Tartars, and that its people transferred their abode to an island in the sea called Zarun, near the continent, and lying west of the old city. At Hormuz itself no inhabitants remain, but some of the lowest order." (In Büsching, IV. 261-262.) Friar Odoric, about 1321, found Hormuz "on an island some 5 miles distant from the main." Ibn Batuta, some eight or nine years later, discriminates between Hormuz or Moghistan on the mainland, and New Hormuz on the Island of Jeraun, but describes only the latter, already a great and rich city.
The site of the Island Hormuz has often been visited and described; but I could find no published trace of any traveller having verified the site of the more ancient city, though the existence of its ruins was known to John de Barros, who says that a little fort called Cuxstac (Kuhestek of P. della Valle, II. p. 300) stood on the site. An application to Colonel Pelly, the very able British Resident at Bushire, brought me from his own personal knowledge the information that I sought, and the following particulars are compiled from the letters with which he has favoured me:—
"The ruins of Old Hormuz, well known as such, stand several miles up a creek, and in the centre of the present district of Minao. They are extensive (though in large part obliterated by long cultivation over the site), and the traces of a long pier or Bandar were pointed out to Colonel Pelly. They are about 6 or 7 miles from the fort of Minao, and the Minao river, or its stony bed, winds down towards them. The creek is quite traceable, but is silted up, and to embark goods you have to go a farsakh towards the sea, where there is a custom-house on that part of the creek which is still navigable. Colonel Pelly collected a few bricks from the ruins. From the mouth of the Old Hormuz creek to the New Hormuz town, or town of Turumpak on the island of Hormuz, is a sail of about three farsakhs. It may be a trifle more, but any native tells you at once that it is three farsakhs from Hormuz Island to the creek where you land to go up to Minao. Hormuzdia was the name of the region in the days of its prosperity. Some people say that Hormuzdia was known as Jerunia, and Old Hormuz town as Jerun." (In this I suspect tradition has gone astray.) "The town and fort of Minao lie to the N.E. of the ancient city, and are built upon the lowest spur of the Bashkurd mountains, commanding a gorge through which the Rudbar river debouches on the plain of Hormuzdia." In these new and interesting particulars it is pleasing to find such precise corroboration both of Edrisi and of Ibn Batuta. The former, writing in the 12th century, says that Hormuz stood on the banks of a canal or creek from the Gulf, by which vessels came up to the city. The latter specifies the breadth of sea between Old and New Hormuz as three farsakhs. (Edrisi, I. 424; I. B. II. 230.)
I now proceed to recapitulate the main features of Polo's Itinerary from Kermán to Hormuz. We have:—
No European traveller, so far as I know, has described the most direct road from Kermán to Hormuz, or rather to its nearest modern representative Bander Abbási,—I mean the road by Báft. But a line to the eastward of this, and leading through the plain of Jiruft, was followed partially by Mr. Abbott in 1850, and completely by Major R. M. Smith, R.E., in 1866. The details of this route, except in one particular, correspond closely in essentials with those given by our author, and form an excellent basis of illustration for Polo's description.
Major Smith (accompanied at first by Colonel Goldsmid, who diverged to Mekran) left Kermán on the 15th of January, and reached Bander Abbási on the 3rd of February, but, as three halts have to be deducted, his total number of marches was exactly the same as Marco's, viz. 17. They divide as follows:—
In the previous edition of this work I was inclined to identify Marco's route absolutely with this Itinerary. But a communication from Major St. John, who surveyed the section from Kermán towards Deh Bakri in 1872, shows that this first section does not answer well to the description. The road is not all plain, for it crosses a mountain pass, though not a formidable one. Neither is it through a thriving, populous tract, for, with the exception of two large villages, Major St. John found the whole road to Deh Bakri from Kermán as desert and dreary as any in Persia. On the other hand, the more direct route to the south, which is that always used except in seasons of extraordinary severity (such as that of Major Smith's journey, when this route was impassable from snow), answers better, as described to Major St. John by muleteers, to Polo's account. The first six days are occupied by a gentle ascent through the districts of Bardesir and Kairat-ul-Arab, which are the best-watered and most fertile uplands of Kermán. From the crest of the pass reached in those six marches (which is probably more than 10,000 feet above the sea, for it was closed by snow on 1st May, 1872), an easy descent of two days leads to the Garmsir. This is traversed in four days, and then a very difficult pass is crossed to reach the plains bordering on the sea. The cold of this route is much greater than that of the Deh Bakri route. Hence the correspondence with Polo's description, as far as the descent to the Garmsir, or Reobarles, seems decidedly better by this route. It is admitted to be quite possible that on reaching this plain the two routes coalesced. We shall assume this provisionally, till some traveller gives us a detailed account of the Bardesir route. Meantime all the remaining particulars answer well.
[General Houtum-Schindler (l.c. pp. 493-495), speaking of the Itinerary from Kermán to Hormúz and back, says: "Only two of the many routes between Kermán and Bender 'Abbás coincide more or less with Marco Polo's description. These two routes are the one over the Deh Bekrí Pass [see above, Colonel Smith], and the one viâ Sárdú. The latter is the one, I think, taken by Marco Polo. The more direct roads to the west are for the greater part through mountainous country, and have not twelve stages in plains which we find enumerated in Marco Polo's Itinerary. The road viâ Báft, Urzú, and the Zendán Pass, for instance, has only four stages in plains; the road, viâ Ráhbur, Rúdbár and the Nevergún Pass only six; and the road viâ Sírján also only six."
The Sárdú road enters the Jíruft plain at the ruins of the old city, the Deh Bekrí route does so at some distance to the eastward. The first six stages performed by Marco Polo in seven days go through fertile plains and past numerous villages. Regarding the cold, "which you can scarcely abide," Marco Polo does not speak of it as existing on the mountains only; he says, "From the city of Kermán to this descent the cold in winter is very great," that is, from Kermán to near Jíruft. The winter at Kermán itself is fairly severe; from the town the ground gradually but steadily rises, the absolute altitudes of the passes crossing the mountains to the south varying from 8000 to 11,000 feet. These passes are up to the month of March always very cold; in one it froze slightly in the beginning of June. The Sárdú Pass lies lower than the others. The name is Sárdú, not Sardú from sard, "cold." Major Sykes (Persia, ch. xxiii.) comes to the same conclusion: "In 1895, and again in 1900, I made a tour partly with the object of solving this problem, and of giving a geographical existence to Sárdu, which appropriately means the 'Cold Country.' I found that there was a route which exactly fitted Marco's conditions, as at Sarbizan the Sárdu plateau terminates in a high pass of 9200 feet, from which there is a most abrupt descent to the plain of Jíruft, Komádin being about 35 miles, or two days' journey from the top of the pass. Starting from Kermán, the stages would be as follows:—I. Jupár (small town); 2. Bahrámjird (large village); 3. Gudar (village); 4. Ráin (small town)…. Thence to the Sarbizan pass is a distance of 45 miles, or three desert stages, thus constituting a total of 110 miles for the seven days. This is the camel route to the present day, and absolutely fits in with the description given…. The question to be decided by this section of the journey may then, I think, be considered to be finally and most satisfactorily settled, the route proving to lie between the two selected by Colonel Yule, as being the most suitable, although he wisely left the question open."—H. C.]
In the abstract of Major Smith's Itinerary as we have given it, we do not find Polo's city of Camadi. Major Smith writes to me, however, that this is probably to be sought in "the ruined city, the traces of which I observed in the plain of Jíruft near Kerimabad. The name of the city is now apparently lost." It is, however, known to the natives as the City of Dakiánús, as Mr. Abbott, who visited the site, informs us. This is a name analogous only to the Arthur's ovens or Merlin's caves of our own country, for all over Mahomedan Asia there are old sites to which legend attaches the name of Dakianus or the Emperor Decius, the persecuting tyrant of the Seven Sleepers. "The spot," says Abbott, "is an elevated part of the plain on the right bank of the Hali Rúd, and is thickly strewn with kiln-baked bricks, and shreds of pottery and glass…. After heavy rain the peasantry search amongst the ruins for ornaments of stone, and rings and coins of gold, silver, and copper. The popular tradition concerning the city is that it was destroyed by a flood long before the birth of Mahomed."
[General Houtum-Schindler, in a paper in the Jour. R. As. Soc., Jan. 1898, p. 43, gives an abstract of Dr. Houtsma's (of Utrecht) memoir, Zur Geschichte der Saljuqen von Kerman, and comes to the conclusion that "from these statements we can safely identify Marco Polo's Camadi with the suburb Qumadin, or, as I would read it, Qamadin, of the city of Jiruft."— (Cf. Major Sykes' Persia, chap. xxiii.: "Camadi was sacked for the first time, after the death of Toghrul Shah of Kermán, when his four sons reduced the province to a condition of anarchy.")
Major P. Molesworth Sykes, Recent Journeys in Persia (Geog. Journal, X. 1897, p. 589), says: "Upon arrival in Rudbar, we turned north wards and left the Farman Farma, in order to explore the site of Marco Polo's 'Camadi.'… We came upon a huge area littered with yellow bricks eight inches square, while not even a broken wall is left to mark the site of what was formerly a great city, under the name of the Sher-i-Jiruft."—H. C.]
The actual distance from Bamm to the City of Dakianus is, by Abbott's Journal, about 66 miles.
The name of REOBARLES, which Marco applies to the plain intermediate between the two descents, has given rise to many conjectures. Marsden pointed to Rúdbár, a name frequently applied in Persia to a district on a river, or intersected by streams—a suggestion all the happier that he was not aware of the fact that there is a district of RUDBAR exactly in the required position. The last syllable still requires explanation. I ventured formerly to suggest that it was the Arabic Lass, or, as Marco would certainly have written it, Les, a robber. Reobarles would then be RUDBAR-I-LASS, "Robber's River District." The appropriateness of the name Marco has amply illustrated; and it appeared to me to survive in that of one of the rivers of the plain, which is mentioned by both Abbott and Smith under the title of Rúdkhánah-i-Duzdi, or Robbery River, a name also applied to a village and old fort on the banks of the stream. This etymology was, however, condemned as an inadmissible combination of Persian and Arabic by two very high authorities both as travellers and scholars—Sir H. Rawlinson and Mr. Khanikoff. The Les, therefore, has still to be explained.[1]
[Major Sykes (Geog. Journal, 1902, p. 130) heard of robbers, some five miles from Mináb, and he adds: "However, nothing happened, and after crossing the Gardan-i-Pichal, we camped at Birinti, which is situated just above the junction of Rudkhána Duzdi, or 'River of Theft,' and forms part of the district of Rudán, in Fars."
"The Jíruft and Rúdbár plains belong to the germsír (hot region), dates, pistachios, and konars (apples of Paradise) abound in them. Reobarles is Rúdbár or Rüdbáris." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. 1881, p. 495.)—H. C.]
We have referred to Marco's expressions regarding the great cold experienced on the pass which formed the first descent; and it is worthy of note that the title of "The Cold Mountains" is applied by Edrisi to these very mountains. Mr. Abbott's MS. Report also mentions in this direction, Sardu, said to be a cold country (as its name seems to express [see above,—H. C.]), which its population (Iliyáts) abandon in winter for the lower plains. It is but recently that the importance of this range of mountains has become known to us. Indeed the existence of the chain, as extending continuously from near Kashán, was first indicated by Khanikoff in 1862. More recently Major St. John has shown the magnitude of this range, which rises into summits of 15,000 feet in altitude, and after a course of 550 miles terminates in a group of volcanic hills some 50 miles S.E. of Bamm. Yet practically this chain is ignored on all our maps!
Marco's description of the "Plain of Formosa" does not apply, now at least, to the whole plain, for towards Bander Abbási it is barren. But to the eastward, about Minao, and therefore about Old Hormuz, it has not fallen off. Colonel Pelly writes: "The district of Minao is still for those regions singularly fertile. Pomegranates, oranges, pistachio-nuts, and various other fruits grow in profusion. The source of its fertility is of course the river, and you can walk for miles among lanes and cultivated ground, partially sheltered from the sun." And Lieutenant Kempthorne, in his notes on that coast, says of the same tract: "It is termed by the natives the Paradise of Persia. It is certainly most beautifully fertile, and abounds in orange-groves, and orchards containing apples, pears, peaches, and apricots; with vineyards producing a delicious grape, from which was at one time made a wine called amber-rosolli"—a name not easy to explain. 'Ambar-i-Rasúl, "The Prophet's Bouquet!" would be too bold a name even for Persia, though names more sacred are so profaned at Naples and on the Moselle. Sir H. Rawlinson suggests 'Ambar-'asali, "Honey Bouquet," as possible.
When Nearchus beached his fleet on the shore of Harmozeia at the mouth of the Anamis (the River of Minao), Arrian tells us he found the country a kindly one, and very fruitful in every way except that there were no olives. The weary mariners landed and enjoyed this pleasant rest from their toils. (Indica, 33; J. R. G. S. V. 274.)
[Illustration: MARCO POLO'S ITINERARIES No. II. Kerman to Hormuz (Bk I. Ch. 19)]
The name Formosa is probably only Rusticiano's misunderstanding of Harmuza, aided, perhaps, by Polo's picture of the beauty of the plain. We have the same change in the old Mafomet for Mahomet, and the converse one in the Spanish hermosa for formosa. Teixeira's Chronicle says that the city of Hormuz was founded by Xa Mahamed Dranku, i.e. Shah Mahomed Dirhem-Ko, in "a plain of the same name."
The statement in Ramusio that Hormuz stood upon an island, is, I doubt not, an interpolation by himself or some earlier transcriber.
When the ships of Nearchus launched again from the mouth of the Anamis, their first day's run carried them past a certain desert and bushy island to another which was large and inhabited. The desert isle was called Organa; the large one by which they anchored Oaracta. (Indica, 37.) Neither name is quite lost; the latter greater island is Kishm or Brakht; the former Jerún,[2] perhaps in old Persian Gerún or Gerán, now again desert though no longer bushy, after having been for three centuries the site of a city which became a poetic type of wealth and splendour. An Eastern saying ran, "Were the world a ring, Hormuz would be the jewel in it."
["The Yüan shi mentions several seaports of the Indian Ocean as carrying on trade with China; Hormuz is not spoken of there. I may, however, quote from the Yüan History a curious statement which perhaps refers to this port. In ch. cxxiii., biography of Arsz-lan, it is recorded that his grandson Hurdutai, by order of Kubilai Khan, accompanied Bu-lo no-yen on his mission to the country of Ha-rh-ma-sz. This latter name may be intended for Hormuz. I do not think that by the Noyen Bulo, M. Polo could be meant, for the title Noyen would hardly have been applied to him. But Rashid-eddin mentions a distinguished Mongol, by name Pulad, with whom he was acquainted in Persia, and who furnished him with much information regarding the history of the Mongols. This may be the Bu-lo no-yen of the Yüan History." (Bretschneider, Med. Res. II. p. 132.)—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—A spirit is still distilled from dates in Persia, Mekran, Sind, and some places in the west of India. It is mentioned by Strabo and Dioscorides, according to Kämpfer, who says it was in his time made under the name of a medicinal stomachic; the rich added Radix Chinae, ambergris, and aromatic spices; the poor, liquorice and Persian absinth. (Sir B. Frere; Amoen. Exot. 750; Macd. Kinneir, 220.)
["The date wine with spices is not now made at Bender 'Abbás. Date arrack, however, is occasionally found. At Kermán a sort of wine or arrack is made with spices and alcohol, distilled from sugar; it is called Má-ul-Háyát (water of life), and is recommended as an aphrodisiac. Grain in the Shamíl plain is harvested in April, dates are gathered in August." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. p. 496.)
See "Remarks on the Use of Wine and Distilled Liquors among the Mohammedans of Turkey and Persia," pp. 315-330 of Narrative of a Tour through Armenia, Kurdistan, Persia, and Mesopotamia…. By the Rev.
Horatio Southgate,… London, 1840, vol. ii.—H. C.]
[Sir H. Yule quotes, in a MS. note, these lines from Moore's Light of the Harem:
"Wine, too, of every clime and hue,
Around their liquid lustre threw
Amber Rosolli[3]—the bright dew
From vineyards of the Green Sea gushing."]
See above, p. 114.
[Illustration: The Double or Latin Rudder, as shown in the Navicella of Giotto. (From Eastlake.)]
The date and dry-fish diet of the Gulf people is noticed by most travellers, and P. del a Valle repeats the opinion about its being the only wholesome one. Ibn Batuta says the people of Hormuz had a saying, "Khormá wa máhí lút-i-Pádshahi," i.e. "Dates and fish make an Emperor's dish!" A fish, exactly like the tunny of the Mediterranean in general appearance and habits, is one of the great objects of fishery off the Sind and Mekran coasts. It comes in pursuit of shoals of anchovies, very much like the Mediterranean fish also. (I. B. II. 231; Sir B. Frere.)
[Friar Odoric (Cathay, I. pp. 55-56) says: "And there you find (before arriving at Hormuz) people who live almost entirely on dates, and you get forty-two pounds of dates for less than a groat; and so of many other things."]
NOTE 3.—The stitched vessels of Kermán ([Greek: ploiária raptà]) are noticed in the Periplus. Similar accounts to those of our text are given of the ships of the Gulf and of Western India by Jordanus and John of Montecorvino. (Jord. p. 53; Cathay, p. 217.) "Stitched vessels," Sir B. Frere writes, "are still used. I have seen them of 200 tons burden; but they are being driven out by iron-fastened vessels, as iron gets cheaper, except where (as on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts) the pliancy of a stitched boat is useful in a surf. Till the last few years, when steamers have begun to take all the best horses, the Arab horses bound to Bombay almost all came in the way Marco Polo describes." Some of them do still, standing over a date cargo, and the result of this combination gives rise to an extraordinary traffic in the Bombay bazaar. From what Colonel Pelly tells me, the stitched build in the Gulf is now confined to fishing-boats, and is disused for sea-going craft.
[Friar Odoric (Cathay, I. p. 57) mentioned these vessels: "In this country men make use of a kind of vessel which they call Jase, which is fastened only with stitching of twine. On one of these vessels I embarked, and I could find no iron at all therein." Jase is for the Arabic Djehaz.—H. C.]
The fish-oil used to rub the ships was whale-oil. The old Arab voyagers of the 9th century describe the fishermen of Siraf in the Gulf as cutting up the whale-blubber and drawing the oil from it, which was mixed with other stuff, and used to rub the joints of ships' planking. (Reinaud, I. 146.)
Both Montecorvino and Polo, in this passage, specify one rudder, as if it was a peculiarity of these ships worth noting. The fact is that, in the Mediterranean at least, the double rudders of the ancients kept their place to a great extent through the Middle Ages. A Marseilles MS. of the 13th century, quoted in Ducange, says: "A ship requires three rudders, two in place, and one to spare." Another: "Every two-ruddered bark shall pay a groat each voyage; every one-ruddered bark shall," etc. (See Due. under Timonus and Temo.) Numerous proofs of the use of two rudders in the 13th century will be found in "Documenti inediti riguardanti le due Crociate di S. Ludovico IX., Re di Francia, etc., da L. T. Belgrano, Genova, 1859." Thus in a specification of ships to be built at Genoa for the king (p. 7), each is to have "Timones duo, affaiticos, grossitudinis palmorum viiii et dimidiae, longitudinis cubitorum xxiiii." Extracts given by Capmany, regarding the equipment of galleys, show the same thing, for he is probably mistaken in saying that one of the dos timones specified was a spare one. Joinville (p. 205) gives incidental evidence of the same: "Those Marseilles ships have each two rudders, with each a tiller (? tison) attached to it in such an ingenious way that you can turn the ship right or left as fast as you would turn a horse. So on the Friday the king was sitting upon one of these tillers, when he called me and said to me," etc.[4] Francesco da Barberino, a poet of the 13th century, in the 7th part of his Documenti d'Amore (printed at Rome in 1640), which instructs the lover to whose lot it may fall to escort his lady on a sea-voyage (instructions carried so far as to provide even for the case of her death at sea!), alludes more than once to these plural rudders. Thus—
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE DOUBLE RUDDER OF THE MIDDLE AGES 12th Century Illumination (After Pertz)
Seal of Winchelsea.
12th Century Illumination (After Pertz)
From Leaning Tower (After Jal)
After Spinello Aretini at Siena
From Monument of St Peter Martyr]
And again, when about to enter a port, it is needful to be on the alert and ready to run in case of a hostile reception, so the galley should enter stern foremost—a movement which he reminds his lover involves the reversal of the ordinary use of the two rudders:—
A representation of a vessel over the door of the Leaning Tower at Pisa shows this arrangement, which is also discernible in the frescoes of galley-fights by Spinello Aretini, in the Municipal Palace at Siena.
[Godinho de Eredia (1613), describing the smaller vessels of Malacca which he calls bâlos in ch. 13, De Embarcaçôes, says: "At the poop they have two rudders, one on each side to steer with." E por poupa dos bâllos, tem 2 lêmes, hum en cada lado pera o governo. (Malacca, l'Inde mérid. et le Cathay, Bruxelles, 1882, 4to, f. 26.)—H. C.]
The midship rudder seems to have been the more usual in the western seas, and the double quarter-rudders in the Mediterranean. The former are sometimes styled Navarresques and the latter Latins. Yet early seals of some of the Cinque Ports show vessels with the double rudder; one of which (that of Winchelsea) is given in the cut.
In the Mediterranean the latter was still in occasional use late in the 16th century. Captain Pantero Pantera in his book, L'Armata Navale (Rome, 1614, p. 44), says that the Galeasses, or great galleys, had the helm alla Navarresca, but also a great oar on each side of it to assist in turning the ship. And I observe that the great galeasses which precede the Christian line of battle at Lepanto, in one of the frescoes by Vasari in the Royal Hall leading to the Sistine Chapel, have the quarter-rudder very distinctly.
The Chinese appear occasionally to employ it, as seems to be indicated in a woodcut of a vessel of war which I have traced from a Chinese book in the National Library at Paris. (See above, p. 37.) [For the Chinese words for rudder, see p. 126 of J. Edkins' article on Chinese Names for Boats and Boat Gear, Jour. N. China Br. R. As. Soc. N.S. XI. 1876.—H. C.] It is also used by certain craft of the Indian Archipelago, as appears from Mr. Wallace's description of the Prau in which he sailed from Macassar to the Aru Islands. And on the Caspian, it is stated in Smith's "Dict. of Antiquities" (art. Gubernaculum), the practice remained in force till late times. A modern traveller was nearly wrecked on that sea, because the two rudders were in the hands of two pilots who spoke different languages, and did not understand each other!
(Besides the works quoted see Jal, Archéologie Navale, II. 437-438, and Capmany, Memorias, III. 61.)
[Major Sykes remarks (Persia, ch. xxiii.): "Some unrecorded event, probably the sight of the unseaworthy craft, which had not an ounce of iron in their composition, made our travellers decide that the risks of the sea were too great, so that we have the pleasure of accompanying them back to Kermán and thence northwards to Khorasán."—H. C.]
NOTE 4.—So also at Bander Abbási Tavernier says it was so unhealthy that foreigners could not stop there beyond March; everybody left it in April. Not a hundredth part of the population, says Kämpfer, remained in the city. Not a beggar would stop for any reward! The rich went to the towns of the interior or to the cool recesses of the mountains, the poor took refuge in the palm-groves at the distance of a day or two from the city. A place called 'Ishin, some 12 miles north of the city, was a favourite resort of the European and Hindu merchants. Here were fine gardens, spacious baths, and a rivulet of fresh and limpid water.
The custom of lying in water is mentioned also by Sir John Maundevile, and it was adopted by the Portuguese when they occupied Insular Hormuz, as P. della Valle and Linschoten relate. The custom is still common during great heats, in Sind and Mekran (Sir B. F.).
An anonymous ancient geography (Liber Junioris Philosophi) speaks of a people in India who live in the Terrestrial Paradise, and lead the life of the Golden Age…. The sun is so hot that they remain all day in the river!
The heat in the Straits of Hormuz drove Abdurrazzak into an anticipation of a verse familiar to English schoolboys: "Even the bird of rapid flight was burnt up in the heights of heaven, as well as the fish in the depths of the sea!" (Tavern. Bk. V. ch. xxiii.; Am. Exot. 716, 762; Müller, Geog. Gr. Min. II. 514; India in XV. Cent. p. 49.)
NOTE 5.—A like description of the effect of the Simúm on the human body is given by Ibn Batuta, Chardin, A. Hamilton, Tavernier, Thévenot, etc.; and the first of these travellers speaks specially of its prevalence in the desert near Hormuz, and of the many graves of its victims; but I have met with no reasonable account of its poisonous action. I will quote Chardin, already quoted at greater length by Marsden, as the most complete parallel to the text: "The most surprising effect of the wind is not the mere fact of its causing death, but its operation on the bodies of those who are killed by it. It seems as if they became decomposed without losing shape, so that you would think them to be merely asleep, when they are not merely dead, but in such a state that if you take hold of any part of the body it comes away in your hand. And the finger penetrates such a body as if it were so much dust." (III. 286.)
Burton, on his journey to Medina, says: "The people assured me that this wind never killed a man in their Allah-favoured land. I doubt the fact. At Bir Abbas the body of an Arnaut was brought in swollen, and decomposed rapidly, the true diagnosis of death by the poison-wind." Khanikoff is very distinct as to the immediate fatality of the desert wind at Khabis, near Kermán, but does not speak of the effect on the body after death. This Major St. John does, describing a case that occurred in June, 1871, when he was halting, during intense heat, at the post-house of Pasangan, a few miles south of Kom. The bodies were brought in of two poor men, who had tried to start some hours before sunset, and were struck down by the poisonous blast within half-a-mile of the post-house. "It was found impossible to wash them before burial…. Directly the limbs were touched they separated from the trunk." (Oc. Highways, ut. sup.) About 1790, when Timúr Sháh of Kabul sent an army under the Sirdár-i-Sirdárán to put down a revolt in Meshed, this force on its return was struck by Simúm in the Plain of Farrah, and the Sirdár perished, with a great number of his men. (Ferrier, H. of the Afghans, 102; J. R. G. S. XXVI. 217; Khan. Mém. 210.)
NOTE 6.—The History of Hormuz is very imperfectly known. What I have met with on the subject consists of—(1) An abstract by Teixeira of a chronicle of Hormuz, written by Thurán Sháh, who was himself sovereign of Hormuz, and died in 1377; (2) some contemporary notices by Wassáf, which are extracted by Hammer in his History of the Ilkhans; (3) some notices from Persian sources in the 2nd Decade of De Barros (ch. ii.). The last do not go further back than Gordun Sháh, the father of Thurán Sháh, to whom they erroneously ascribe the first migration to the Island.
One of Teixeira's Princes is called Ruknuddin Mahmud, and with him Marsden and Pauthier have identified Polo's Ruomedam Acomet, or as he is called on another occasion in the Geog. Text, Maimodi Acomet. This, however, is out of the question, for the death of Ruknuddin is assigned to A.H. 675 (A.D. 1277), whilst there can, I think, be no doubt that Marco's account refers to the period of his return from China, viz. 1293 or thereabouts.
We find in Teixeira that the ruler who succeeded in 1290 was Amir Masa'úd, who obtained the Government by the murder of his brother Saifuddin Nazrat. Masa'úd was cruel and oppressive; most of the influential people withdrew to Baháuddin Ayaz, whom Saifuddin had made Wazir of Kalhát on the Arabian coast. This Wazir assembled a force and drove out Masa'úd after he had reigned three years. He fled to Kermán and died there some years afterwards.
Baháuddin, who had originally been a slave of Saifuddin Nazrat's, succeeded in establishing his authority. But about 1300 great bodies of Turks (i.e. Tartars) issuing from Turkestan ravaged many provinces of Persia, including Kermán and Hormuz. The people, unable to bear the frequency of such visitations, retired first to the island of Kishm, and then to that of Jerún, on which last was built the city of New Hormuz, afterwards so famous. This is Teixeira's account from Thurán Sháh, so far as we are concerned with it. As regards the transfer of the city it agrees substantially with Abulfeda's, which we have already quoted (supra, note 1).
Hammer's account from Wassáf is frightfully confused, chiefly I should suppose from Hammer's own fault; for among other things he assumes that Hormuz was always on an island, and he distinguishes between the Island of Hormuz and the Island of Jerún! We gather, however, that Hormuz before the Mongol time formed a government subordinate to the Salghur Atabegs of Fars (see note 1, ch. xv.), and when the power of that Dynasty was falling, the governor Mahmúd Kalháti, established himself as Prince of Hormuz, and became the founder of a petty dynasty, being evidently identical with Teixeira's Ruknuddin Mahmud above-named, who is represented as reigning from 1246 to 1277. In Wassáf we find, as in Teixeira, Mahmúd's son Masa'úd killing his brother Nazrat, and Baháuddin expelling Masa'úd. It is true that Hammer's surprising muddle makes Nazrat kill Masa'úd; however, as a few lines lower we find Masa'úd alive and Nazrat dead, we may safely venture on this correction. But we find also that Masa'úd appears as Ruknuddin Masa'úd, and that Baháuddin does not assume the princely authority himself, but proclaims that of Fakhruddin Ahmed Ben Ibrahim At-Thaibi, a personage who does not appear in Teixeira at all. A MS. history, quoted by Ouseley, does mention Fakhruddin, and ascribes to him the transfer to Jerún. Wassáf seems to allude to Baháuddin as a sort of Sea Rover, occupying the islands of Larek and Jerún, whilst Fakhruddin reigned at Hormuz. It is difficult to understand the relation between the two.
It is possible that Polo's memory made some confusion between the names of RUKNUDDIN Masa'úd and Fakhruddin AHMED, but I incline to think the latter is his RUOMEDAN AHMED. For Teixeira tells us that Masa'úd took refuge at the court of Kermán, and Wassáf represents him as supported in his claims by the Atabeg of that province, whilst we see that Polo seems to represent Ruomedan Acomat as in hostility with that prince. To add to the imbroglio I find in a passage of Wassáf Malik Fakhruddin Ahmed at-Thaibi sent by Ghazan Khan in 1297 as ambassador to Khanbalig, staying there some years, and dying off the Coromandel coast on his return in 1305. (Elliot, iii. pp. 45-47.)
Masa'úd's seeking help from Kermán to reinstate him is not the first case of the same kind that occurs in Teixeira's chronicle, so there may have been some kind of colour for Marco's representation of the Prince of Hormuz as the vassal of the Atabeg of Kermán ("l'homme de cest roy de Creman;" see Prologue, ch. xiv. note 2). M. Khanikoff denies the possibility of the existence of any royal dynasty at Hormuz at this period. That there was a dynasty of Maliks of Hormuz, however, at this period we must believe on the concurring testimony of Marco, of Wassáf, and of Thurán Sháh. There was also, it would seem, another quasi-independent principality in the Island of Kais. (Hammer's Ilch. II. 50, 51; Teixeira, Relacion de los Reyes de Hormuz; Khan. Notice, p. 34.)
The ravages of the Tartars which drove the people of Hormuz from their city may have begun with the incursions of the Nigudaris and Karaunahs, but they probably came to a climax in the great raid in 1299 of the Chaghataian Prince Kotlogh Shah, son of Dua Khan, a part of whose bands besieged the city itself, though they are said to have been repulsed by Baháuddin Ayas.
[The Dynasty of Hormuz was founded about 1060 by a Yemen chief Mohammed Dirhem Ko, and remained subject to Kermán till 1249, when Rokn ed-din Mahmúd III. Kalháti (1242-1277) made himself independent. The immediate successors of Rokn ed-din were Saif ed-din Nazrat (1277-1290), Masa'úd (1290-1293), Bahad ed-din Ayaz Sayfin (1293-1311). Hormuz was captured by the Portuguese in 1510 and by the Persians in 1622.—H. C.]
NOTE 7.—The indications of this alternative route to Kermán are very vague, but it may probably have been that through Finn, Tárum, and the Sírján district, passing out of the plain of Hormuz by the eastern flank of the Ginao mountain. This road would pass near the hot springs at the base of the said mountain, Sarga, Khurkhu, and Ginao, which are described by Kämpfer. Being more or less sulphureous they are likely to be useful in skin-diseases: indeed, Hamilton speaks of their efficacy in these. (I. 95.) The salt-streams are numerous on this line, and dates are abundant. The bitterness of the bread was, however, more probably due to another cause, as Major Smith has kindly pointed out to me: "Throughout the mountains in the south of Persia, which are generally covered with dwarf oak, the people are in the habit of making bread of the acorns, or of the acorns mixed with wheat or barley. It is dark in colour, and very hard, bitter, and unpalatable."
Major St. John also noticed the bitterness of the bread in Kermán, but his servants attributed it to the presence in the wheat-fields of a bitter leguminous plant, with a yellowish white flower, which the Kermánis were too lazy to separate, so that much remained in the thrashing, and imparted its bitter flavour to the grain (surely the Tare of our Lord's Parable!).
[General Houtum-Schindler says (l.c. p. 496): "Marco Polo's return journey was, I am inclined to think, viâ Urzú and Báft, the shortest and most direct road. The road viâ Tárum and Sírján is very seldom taken by travellers intending to go to Kermán; it is only frequented by the caravans going between Bender 'Abbás and Bahrámábád, three stages west of Kermán. Hot springs, 'curing itch,' I noticed at two places on the Urzú-Báft road. There were some near Qal'ah Asgber and others near Dashtáb; they were frequented by people suffering from skin-diseases, and were highly sulphureous; the water of those near Dashtáb turned a silver ring black after two hours' immersion. Another reason of my advocating the Urzú road is that the bitter bread spoken of by Marco Polo is only found on it, viz. at Báft and in Bardshír. In Sírján, to the west, and on the roads to the east, the bread is sweet. The bitter taste is from the Khúr, a bitter leguminous plant, which grows among the wheat, and whose grains the people are too lazy to pick out. There is not a single oak between Bender 'Abbás and Kermán; none of the inhabitants seemed to know what an acorn was. A person at Báft, who had once gone to Kerbelá viâ Kermánsháh and Baghdád, recognised my sketch of tree and fruit immediately, having seen oak and acorn between Kermánsháh and Qasr-i-Shírín on the Baghdád road." Major Sykes writes (ch. xxiii.): "The above description undoubtedly refers to the main winter route, which runs viâ Sírján. This is demonstrated by the fact that under the Kuh-i-Ginao, the summer station of Bandar Abbás, there is a magnificent sulphur spring, which, welling from an orifice 4 feet in diameter, forms a stream some 30 yards wide. Its temperature at the source is 113 degrees, and its therapeutic properties are highly appreciated. As to the bitterness of the bread, it is suggested in the notes that it was caused by being mixed with acorns, but, to-day at any rate, there are no oak forests in this part of Persia, and I would urge that it is better to accept our traveller's statement, that it was due to the bitterness of the water."—However, I prefer Gen. Houtum-Schindler's theory.—H. C.]
_______________
Notes:
[1] It is but fair to say that scholars so eminent as Professors Sprenger and Blochmann have considered the original suggestion lawful and probable. Indeed, Mr. Blochmann says in a letter: "After studying a language for years, one acquires a natural feeling for anything un-idiomatic; but I must confess I see nothing un-Persian in rúdbár-i-duzd, nor in rúdbár-i-lass…. How common lass is, you may see from one fact, that it occurs in children's reading-books." We must not take Reobarles in Marco's French as rhyming to (French) Charles; every syllable sounds. It is remarkable that Las, as the name of a small State near our Sind frontier, is said to mean, "in the language of the country," a level plain. (J. A. S. B. VIII. 195.) It is not clear what is meant by the language of the country. The chief is a Brahui, the people are Lumri or Numri Bilúchis, who are, according to Tod, of Jat descent.
[2] Sir Henry Rawlinson objects to this identification (which is the same that Dr. Karl Müller adopts), saying that Organa is more probably "Angan, formerly Argan." To this I cannot assent. Nearchus sails 300 stadia from the mouth of Anamis to Oaracta, and on his way passes Organa. Taking 600 stadia to the degree (Dr. Müller's value), I make it just 300 stadia from the mouth of the Hormuz creek to the eastern point of Kishm. Organa must have been either Jerún or Lárek; Angan (Hanjám of Mas'udi) is out of the question. And as a straight run must have passed quite close to Jerún, not to Larek, I find the former most probable. Nearchus next day proceeds 200 stadia along Oaracta, and anchors in sight of another island (Neptune's) which was separated by 40 stadia from Oaracta. This was Angan; no other island answers, and for this the distances answer with singular precision.
[3] Moore refers to Persian Tales.
[4] This tison can be seen in the cuts from the tomb of St. Peter Martyr and the seal of Winchelsea.
[5] Spere, bundles of spars, etc., dragged overboard.
The Plain of which we have spoken extends in a southerly direction for five days' journey, and then you come to another descent some twenty miles in length, where the road is very bad and full of peril, for there are many robbers and bad characters about. When you have got to the foot of this descent you find another beautiful plain called the PLAIN OF FORMOSA. This extends for two days' journey; and you find in it fine streams of water with plenty of date-palms and other fruit-trees. There are also many beautiful birds, francolins, popinjays, and other kinds such as we have none of in our country. When you have ridden these two days you come to the Ocean Sea, and on the shore you find a city with a harbour which is called HORMOS.[NOTE 1] Merchants come thither from India, with ships loaded with spicery and precious stones, pearls, cloths of silk and gold, elephants' teeth, and many other wares, which they sell to the merchants of Hormos, and which these in turn carry all over the world to dispose of again. In fact, 'tis a city of immense trade. There are plenty of towns and villages under it, but it is the capital. The King is called RUOMEDAM AHOMET. It is a very sickly place, and the heat of the sun is tremendous. If any foreign merchant dies there, the King takes all his property.
In this country they make a wine of dates mixt with spices, which is very good. When any one not used to it first drinks this wine, it causes repeated and violent purging, but afterwards he is all the better for it, and gets fat upon it. The people never eat meat and wheaten bread except when they are ill, and if they take such food when they are in health it makes them ill. Their food when in health consists of dates and salt-fish (tunny, to wit) and onions, and this kind of diet they maintain in order to preserve their health.[NOTE 2]
Their ships are wretched affairs, and many of them get lost; for they have no iron fastenings, and are only stitched together with twine made from the husk of the Indian nut. They beat this husk until it becomes like horse-hair, and from that they spin twine, and with this stitch the planks of the ships together. It keeps well, and is not corroded by the sea-water, but it will not stand well in a storm. The ships are not pitched, but are rubbed with fish-oil. They have one mast, one sail, and one rudder, and have no deck, but only a cover spread over the cargo when loaded. This cover consists of hides, and on the top of these hides they put the horses which they take to India for sale. They have no iron to make nails of, and for this reason they use only wooden trenails in their shipbuilding, and then stitch the planks with twine as I have told you. Hence 'tis a perilous business to go a voyage in one of those ships, and many of them are lost, for in that Sea of India the storms are often terrible.[NOTE 3]
The people are black, and are worshippers of Mahommet. The residents avoid living in the cities, for the heat in summer is so great that it would kill them. Hence they go out (to sleep) at their gardens in the country, where there are streams and plenty of water. For all that they would not escape but for one thing that I will mention. The fact is, you see, that in summer a wind often blows across the sands which encompass the plain, so intolerably hot that it would kill everybody, were it not that when they perceive that wind coming they plunge into water up to the neck, and so abide until the wind have ceased.[NOTE 4] [And to prove the great heat of this wind, Messer Mark related a case that befell when he was there. The Lord of Hormos, not having paid his tribute to the King of Kerman the latter resolved to claim it at the time when the people of Hormos were residing away from the city. So he caused a force of 1600 horse and 5000 foot to be got ready, and sent them by the route of Reobarles to take the others by surprise. Now, it happened one day that through the fault of their guide they were not able to reach the place appointed for their night's halt, and were obliged to bivouac in a wilderness not far from Hormos. In the morning as they were starting on their march they were caught by that wind, and every man of them was suffocated, so that not one survived to carry the tidings to their Lord. When the people of Hormos heard of this they went forth to bury the bodies lest they should breed a pestilence. But when they laid hold of them by the arms to drag them to the pits, the bodies proved to be so baked, as it were, by that tremendous heat, that the arms parted from the trunks, and in the end the people had to dig graves hard by each where it lay, and so cast them in.][NOTE 5]
The people sow their wheat and barley and other corn in the month of November, and reap it in the month of March. The dates are not gathered till May, but otherwise there is no grass nor any other green thing, for the excessive heat dries up everything.
When any one dies they make a great business of the mourning, for women mourn their husbands four years. During that time they mourn at least once a day, gathering together their kinsfolk and friends and neighbours for the purpose, and making a great weeping and wailing. [And they have women who are mourners by trade, and do it for hire.]
Now, we will quit this country. I shall not, however, now go on to tell you about India; but when time and place shall suit we shall come round from the north and tell you about it. For the present, let us return by another road to the aforesaid city of Kerman, for we cannot get at those countries that I wish to tell you about except through that city.
I should tell you first, however, that King Ruomedam Ahomet of Hormos, which we are leaving, is a liegeman of the King of Kerman.[NOTE 6]
On the road by which we return from Hormos to Kerman you meet with some very fine plains, and you also find many natural hot baths; you find plenty of partridges on the road; and there are towns where victual is cheap and abundant, with quantities of dates and other fruits. The wheaten bread, however, is so bitter, owing to the bitterness of the water, that no one can eat it who is not used to it. The baths that I mentioned have excellent virtues; they cure the itch and several other diseases.[NOTE 7]
Now, then, I am going to tell you about the countries towards the north, of which you shall hear in regular order. Let us begin.
NOTE 1.—Having now arrived at HORMUZ, it is time to see what can be made of the Geography of the route from Kermán to that port.
The port of Hormuz, [which had taken the place of Kish as the most important market of the Persian Gulf (H. C.)], stood upon the mainland. A few years later it was transferred to the island which became so famous, under circumstances which are concisely related by Abulfeda:—"Hormuz is the port of Kermán, a city rich in palms, and very hot. One who has visited it in our day tells me that the ancient Hormuz was devastated by the incursions of the Tartars, and that its people transferred their abode to an island in the sea called Zarun, near the continent, and lying west of the old city. At Hormuz itself no inhabitants remain, but some of the lowest order." (In Büsching, IV. 261-262.) Friar Odoric, about 1321, found Hormuz "on an island some 5 miles distant from the main." Ibn Batuta, some eight or nine years later, discriminates between Hormuz or Moghistan on the mainland, and New Hormuz on the Island of Jeraun, but describes only the latter, already a great and rich city.
The site of the Island Hormuz has often been visited and described; but I could find no published trace of any traveller having verified the site of the more ancient city, though the existence of its ruins was known to John de Barros, who says that a little fort called Cuxstac (Kuhestek of P. della Valle, II. p. 300) stood on the site. An application to Colonel Pelly, the very able British Resident at Bushire, brought me from his own personal knowledge the information that I sought, and the following particulars are compiled from the letters with which he has favoured me:—
"The ruins of Old Hormuz, well known as such, stand several miles up a creek, and in the centre of the present district of Minao. They are extensive (though in large part obliterated by long cultivation over the site), and the traces of a long pier or Bandar were pointed out to Colonel Pelly. They are about 6 or 7 miles from the fort of Minao, and the Minao river, or its stony bed, winds down towards them. The creek is quite traceable, but is silted up, and to embark goods you have to go a farsakh towards the sea, where there is a custom-house on that part of the creek which is still navigable. Colonel Pelly collected a few bricks from the ruins. From the mouth of the Old Hormuz creek to the New Hormuz town, or town of Turumpak on the island of Hormuz, is a sail of about three farsakhs. It may be a trifle more, but any native tells you at once that it is three farsakhs from Hormuz Island to the creek where you land to go up to Minao. Hormuzdia was the name of the region in the days of its prosperity. Some people say that Hormuzdia was known as Jerunia, and Old Hormuz town as Jerun." (In this I suspect tradition has gone astray.) "The town and fort of Minao lie to the N.E. of the ancient city, and are built upon the lowest spur of the Bashkurd mountains, commanding a gorge through which the Rudbar river debouches on the plain of Hormuzdia." In these new and interesting particulars it is pleasing to find such precise corroboration both of Edrisi and of Ibn Batuta. The former, writing in the 12th century, says that Hormuz stood on the banks of a canal or creek from the Gulf, by which vessels came up to the city. The latter specifies the breadth of sea between Old and New Hormuz as three farsakhs. (Edrisi, I. 424; I. B. II. 230.)
I now proceed to recapitulate the main features of Polo's Itinerary from Kermán to Hormuz. We have:—
Marches
1. From Kermán across a plain to the top of a mountain-pass, where extreme cold was experienced . . . . . . . . 7
2. A descent, occupying . . . . . . . 2
3. A great plain, called Reobarles, in a much warmer climate, abounding in francolin partridge, and in dates and tropical fruit, with a ruined city of former note, called Camadi, near the head of the plain, which extends for . . . . . . . . 5
4. A second very bad pass, descending for 20 miles, say 1
5. A well-watered fruitful plain, which is crossed to Hormuz, on the shores of the Gulf . . . . 2
—
Total 17
No European traveller, so far as I know, has described the most direct road from Kermán to Hormuz, or rather to its nearest modern representative Bander Abbási,—I mean the road by Báft. But a line to the eastward of this, and leading through the plain of Jiruft, was followed partially by Mr. Abbott in 1850, and completely by Major R. M. Smith, R.E., in 1866. The details of this route, except in one particular, correspond closely in essentials with those given by our author, and form an excellent basis of illustration for Polo's description.
Major Smith (accompanied at first by Colonel Goldsmid, who diverged to Mekran) left Kermán on the 15th of January, and reached Bander Abbási on the 3rd of February, but, as three halts have to be deducted, his total number of marches was exactly the same as Marco's, viz. 17. They divide as follows:—
Marches
1. From Kermán to the caravanserai of Deh Bakri in the pass so called. "The ground as I ascended became covered with snow, and the weather bitterly cold" (Report) . . . . . . . . . 6
2. Two miles over very deep snow brought him to the top of the pass; he then descended 14 miles to his halt. Two miles to the south of the crest he passed a second caravanserai: "The two are evidently built so near one another to afford shelter to travellers who may be unable to cross the ridge during heavy snow-storms." The next march continued the descent for 14 miles, and then carried him 10 miles along the banks of the Rudkhanah-i-Shor. The approximate height of the pass above the sea is estimated at 8000 feet. We have thus for the descent the greater part of . . . . 2
3. "Clumps of date-palms growing near the village showed that I had now reached a totally different climate." (Smith's Report.) And Mr. Abbott says of the same region: "Partly wooded … and with thickets of reeds abounding with francolin and Jirufti partridge…. The lands yield grain, millet, pulse, French- and horse-beans, rice, cotton, henna, Palma Christi, and dates, and in part are of great fertility…. Rainy season from January to March, after which a luxuriant crop of grass." Across this plain (districts of Jiruft and Rudbar), the height of which above the sea, is something under 2000 feet . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. 6-1/2 hours, "nearly the whole way over a most difficult mountain-pass," called the Pass of Nevergun . . . 1
5. Two long marches over a plain, part of which is described as "continuous cultivation for some 16 miles," and the rest as a "most uninteresting plain" . . . . . 2
—
Total as before . . . . 17
In the previous edition of this work I was inclined to identify Marco's route absolutely with this Itinerary. But a communication from Major St. John, who surveyed the section from Kermán towards Deh Bakri in 1872, shows that this first section does not answer well to the description. The road is not all plain, for it crosses a mountain pass, though not a formidable one. Neither is it through a thriving, populous tract, for, with the exception of two large villages, Major St. John found the whole road to Deh Bakri from Kermán as desert and dreary as any in Persia. On the other hand, the more direct route to the south, which is that always used except in seasons of extraordinary severity (such as that of Major Smith's journey, when this route was impassable from snow), answers better, as described to Major St. John by muleteers, to Polo's account. The first six days are occupied by a gentle ascent through the districts of Bardesir and Kairat-ul-Arab, which are the best-watered and most fertile uplands of Kermán. From the crest of the pass reached in those six marches (which is probably more than 10,000 feet above the sea, for it was closed by snow on 1st May, 1872), an easy descent of two days leads to the Garmsir. This is traversed in four days, and then a very difficult pass is crossed to reach the plains bordering on the sea. The cold of this route is much greater than that of the Deh Bakri route. Hence the correspondence with Polo's description, as far as the descent to the Garmsir, or Reobarles, seems decidedly better by this route. It is admitted to be quite possible that on reaching this plain the two routes coalesced. We shall assume this provisionally, till some traveller gives us a detailed account of the Bardesir route. Meantime all the remaining particulars answer well.
[General Houtum-Schindler (l.c. pp. 493-495), speaking of the Itinerary from Kermán to Hormúz and back, says: "Only two of the many routes between Kermán and Bender 'Abbás coincide more or less with Marco Polo's description. These two routes are the one over the Deh Bekrí Pass [see above, Colonel Smith], and the one viâ Sárdú. The latter is the one, I think, taken by Marco Polo. The more direct roads to the west are for the greater part through mountainous country, and have not twelve stages in plains which we find enumerated in Marco Polo's Itinerary. The road viâ Báft, Urzú, and the Zendán Pass, for instance, has only four stages in plains; the road, viâ Ráhbur, Rúdbár and the Nevergún Pass only six; and the road viâ Sírján also only six."
Marches.
The Sárdú route, which seems to me to be the one followed by Marco Polo, has five stages through fertile and populous plains to Sarvízan . . . . . 5
One day's march ascends to the top of the Sarvízan Pass 1
Two days' descent to Ráhjird, a village close to the ruins of old Jíruft, now called Shehr-i-Daqíánús . . 2
Six days' march over the "vast plain" of Jírúft and Rúdbár to Faríáb, joining the Deh Bekrí route at Kerímábád, one stage south of the Shehr-i-Daqíánús . . . . 6
One day's march through the Nevergún Pass to Shamíl, descending . . . . . . . . . 1
Two days' march through the plain to Bender 'Abbás or Hormúz . . . . . . . . . . 2
—
In all . . . . . . 17
The Sárdú road enters the Jíruft plain at the ruins of the old city, the Deh Bekrí route does so at some distance to the eastward. The first six stages performed by Marco Polo in seven days go through fertile plains and past numerous villages. Regarding the cold, "which you can scarcely abide," Marco Polo does not speak of it as existing on the mountains only; he says, "From the city of Kermán to this descent the cold in winter is very great," that is, from Kermán to near Jíruft. The winter at Kermán itself is fairly severe; from the town the ground gradually but steadily rises, the absolute altitudes of the passes crossing the mountains to the south varying from 8000 to 11,000 feet. These passes are up to the month of March always very cold; in one it froze slightly in the beginning of June. The Sárdú Pass lies lower than the others. The name is Sárdú, not Sardú from sard, "cold." Major Sykes (Persia, ch. xxiii.) comes to the same conclusion: "In 1895, and again in 1900, I made a tour partly with the object of solving this problem, and of giving a geographical existence to Sárdu, which appropriately means the 'Cold Country.' I found that there was a route which exactly fitted Marco's conditions, as at Sarbizan the Sárdu plateau terminates in a high pass of 9200 feet, from which there is a most abrupt descent to the plain of Jíruft, Komádin being about 35 miles, or two days' journey from the top of the pass. Starting from Kermán, the stages would be as follows:—I. Jupár (small town); 2. Bahrámjird (large village); 3. Gudar (village); 4. Ráin (small town)…. Thence to the Sarbizan pass is a distance of 45 miles, or three desert stages, thus constituting a total of 110 miles for the seven days. This is the camel route to the present day, and absolutely fits in with the description given…. The question to be decided by this section of the journey may then, I think, be considered to be finally and most satisfactorily settled, the route proving to lie between the two selected by Colonel Yule, as being the most suitable, although he wisely left the question open."—H. C.]
In the abstract of Major Smith's Itinerary as we have given it, we do not find Polo's city of Camadi. Major Smith writes to me, however, that this is probably to be sought in "the ruined city, the traces of which I observed in the plain of Jíruft near Kerimabad. The name of the city is now apparently lost." It is, however, known to the natives as the City of Dakiánús, as Mr. Abbott, who visited the site, informs us. This is a name analogous only to the Arthur's ovens or Merlin's caves of our own country, for all over Mahomedan Asia there are old sites to which legend attaches the name of Dakianus or the Emperor Decius, the persecuting tyrant of the Seven Sleepers. "The spot," says Abbott, "is an elevated part of the plain on the right bank of the Hali Rúd, and is thickly strewn with kiln-baked bricks, and shreds of pottery and glass…. After heavy rain the peasantry search amongst the ruins for ornaments of stone, and rings and coins of gold, silver, and copper. The popular tradition concerning the city is that it was destroyed by a flood long before the birth of Mahomed."
[General Houtum-Schindler, in a paper in the Jour. R. As. Soc., Jan. 1898, p. 43, gives an abstract of Dr. Houtsma's (of Utrecht) memoir, Zur Geschichte der Saljuqen von Kerman, and comes to the conclusion that "from these statements we can safely identify Marco Polo's Camadi with the suburb Qumadin, or, as I would read it, Qamadin, of the city of Jiruft."— (Cf. Major Sykes' Persia, chap. xxiii.: "Camadi was sacked for the first time, after the death of Toghrul Shah of Kermán, when his four sons reduced the province to a condition of anarchy.")
Major P. Molesworth Sykes, Recent Journeys in Persia (Geog. Journal, X. 1897, p. 589), says: "Upon arrival in Rudbar, we turned north wards and left the Farman Farma, in order to explore the site of Marco Polo's 'Camadi.'… We came upon a huge area littered with yellow bricks eight inches square, while not even a broken wall is left to mark the site of what was formerly a great city, under the name of the Sher-i-Jiruft."—H. C.]
The actual distance from Bamm to the City of Dakianus is, by Abbott's Journal, about 66 miles.
The name of REOBARLES, which Marco applies to the plain intermediate between the two descents, has given rise to many conjectures. Marsden pointed to Rúdbár, a name frequently applied in Persia to a district on a river, or intersected by streams—a suggestion all the happier that he was not aware of the fact that there is a district of RUDBAR exactly in the required position. The last syllable still requires explanation. I ventured formerly to suggest that it was the Arabic Lass, or, as Marco would certainly have written it, Les, a robber. Reobarles would then be RUDBAR-I-LASS, "Robber's River District." The appropriateness of the name Marco has amply illustrated; and it appeared to me to survive in that of one of the rivers of the plain, which is mentioned by both Abbott and Smith under the title of Rúdkhánah-i-Duzdi, or Robbery River, a name also applied to a village and old fort on the banks of the stream. This etymology was, however, condemned as an inadmissible combination of Persian and Arabic by two very high authorities both as travellers and scholars—Sir H. Rawlinson and Mr. Khanikoff. The Les, therefore, has still to be explained.[1]
[Major Sykes (Geog. Journal, 1902, p. 130) heard of robbers, some five miles from Mináb, and he adds: "However, nothing happened, and after crossing the Gardan-i-Pichal, we camped at Birinti, which is situated just above the junction of Rudkhána Duzdi, or 'River of Theft,' and forms part of the district of Rudán, in Fars."
"The Jíruft and Rúdbár plains belong to the germsír (hot region), dates, pistachios, and konars (apples of Paradise) abound in them. Reobarles is Rúdbár or Rüdbáris." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. 1881, p. 495.)—H. C.]
We have referred to Marco's expressions regarding the great cold experienced on the pass which formed the first descent; and it is worthy of note that the title of "The Cold Mountains" is applied by Edrisi to these very mountains. Mr. Abbott's MS. Report also mentions in this direction, Sardu, said to be a cold country (as its name seems to express [see above,—H. C.]), which its population (Iliyáts) abandon in winter for the lower plains. It is but recently that the importance of this range of mountains has become known to us. Indeed the existence of the chain, as extending continuously from near Kashán, was first indicated by Khanikoff in 1862. More recently Major St. John has shown the magnitude of this range, which rises into summits of 15,000 feet in altitude, and after a course of 550 miles terminates in a group of volcanic hills some 50 miles S.E. of Bamm. Yet practically this chain is ignored on all our maps!
Marco's description of the "Plain of Formosa" does not apply, now at least, to the whole plain, for towards Bander Abbási it is barren. But to the eastward, about Minao, and therefore about Old Hormuz, it has not fallen off. Colonel Pelly writes: "The district of Minao is still for those regions singularly fertile. Pomegranates, oranges, pistachio-nuts, and various other fruits grow in profusion. The source of its fertility is of course the river, and you can walk for miles among lanes and cultivated ground, partially sheltered from the sun." And Lieutenant Kempthorne, in his notes on that coast, says of the same tract: "It is termed by the natives the Paradise of Persia. It is certainly most beautifully fertile, and abounds in orange-groves, and orchards containing apples, pears, peaches, and apricots; with vineyards producing a delicious grape, from which was at one time made a wine called amber-rosolli"—a name not easy to explain. 'Ambar-i-Rasúl, "The Prophet's Bouquet!" would be too bold a name even for Persia, though names more sacred are so profaned at Naples and on the Moselle. Sir H. Rawlinson suggests 'Ambar-'asali, "Honey Bouquet," as possible.
When Nearchus beached his fleet on the shore of Harmozeia at the mouth of the Anamis (the River of Minao), Arrian tells us he found the country a kindly one, and very fruitful in every way except that there were no olives. The weary mariners landed and enjoyed this pleasant rest from their toils. (Indica, 33; J. R. G. S. V. 274.)
[Illustration: MARCO POLO'S ITINERARIES No. II. Kerman to Hormuz (Bk I. Ch. 19)]
The name Formosa is probably only Rusticiano's misunderstanding of Harmuza, aided, perhaps, by Polo's picture of the beauty of the plain. We have the same change in the old Mafomet for Mahomet, and the converse one in the Spanish hermosa for formosa. Teixeira's Chronicle says that the city of Hormuz was founded by Xa Mahamed Dranku, i.e. Shah Mahomed Dirhem-Ko, in "a plain of the same name."
The statement in Ramusio that Hormuz stood upon an island, is, I doubt not, an interpolation by himself or some earlier transcriber.
When the ships of Nearchus launched again from the mouth of the Anamis, their first day's run carried them past a certain desert and bushy island to another which was large and inhabited. The desert isle was called Organa; the large one by which they anchored Oaracta. (Indica, 37.) Neither name is quite lost; the latter greater island is Kishm or Brakht; the former Jerún,[2] perhaps in old Persian Gerún or Gerán, now again desert though no longer bushy, after having been for three centuries the site of a city which became a poetic type of wealth and splendour. An Eastern saying ran, "Were the world a ring, Hormuz would be the jewel in it."
["The Yüan shi mentions several seaports of the Indian Ocean as carrying on trade with China; Hormuz is not spoken of there. I may, however, quote from the Yüan History a curious statement which perhaps refers to this port. In ch. cxxiii., biography of Arsz-lan, it is recorded that his grandson Hurdutai, by order of Kubilai Khan, accompanied Bu-lo no-yen on his mission to the country of Ha-rh-ma-sz. This latter name may be intended for Hormuz. I do not think that by the Noyen Bulo, M. Polo could be meant, for the title Noyen would hardly have been applied to him. But Rashid-eddin mentions a distinguished Mongol, by name Pulad, with whom he was acquainted in Persia, and who furnished him with much information regarding the history of the Mongols. This may be the Bu-lo no-yen of the Yüan History." (Bretschneider, Med. Res. II. p. 132.)—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—A spirit is still distilled from dates in Persia, Mekran, Sind, and some places in the west of India. It is mentioned by Strabo and Dioscorides, according to Kämpfer, who says it was in his time made under the name of a medicinal stomachic; the rich added Radix Chinae, ambergris, and aromatic spices; the poor, liquorice and Persian absinth. (Sir B. Frere; Amoen. Exot. 750; Macd. Kinneir, 220.)
["The date wine with spices is not now made at Bender 'Abbás. Date arrack, however, is occasionally found. At Kermán a sort of wine or arrack is made with spices and alcohol, distilled from sugar; it is called Má-ul-Háyát (water of life), and is recommended as an aphrodisiac. Grain in the Shamíl plain is harvested in April, dates are gathered in August." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. p. 496.)
See "Remarks on the Use of Wine and Distilled Liquors among the Mohammedans of Turkey and Persia," pp. 315-330 of Narrative of a Tour through Armenia, Kurdistan, Persia, and Mesopotamia…. By the Rev.
Horatio Southgate,… London, 1840, vol. ii.—H. C.]
[Sir H. Yule quotes, in a MS. note, these lines from Moore's Light of the Harem:
"Wine, too, of every clime and hue,
Around their liquid lustre threw
Amber Rosolli[3]—the bright dew
From vineyards of the Green Sea gushing."]
See above, p. 114.
[Illustration: The Double or Latin Rudder, as shown in the Navicella of Giotto. (From Eastlake.)]
The date and dry-fish diet of the Gulf people is noticed by most travellers, and P. del a Valle repeats the opinion about its being the only wholesome one. Ibn Batuta says the people of Hormuz had a saying, "Khormá wa máhí lút-i-Pádshahi," i.e. "Dates and fish make an Emperor's dish!" A fish, exactly like the tunny of the Mediterranean in general appearance and habits, is one of the great objects of fishery off the Sind and Mekran coasts. It comes in pursuit of shoals of anchovies, very much like the Mediterranean fish also. (I. B. II. 231; Sir B. Frere.)
[Friar Odoric (Cathay, I. pp. 55-56) says: "And there you find (before arriving at Hormuz) people who live almost entirely on dates, and you get forty-two pounds of dates for less than a groat; and so of many other things."]
NOTE 3.—The stitched vessels of Kermán ([Greek: ploiária raptà]) are noticed in the Periplus. Similar accounts to those of our text are given of the ships of the Gulf and of Western India by Jordanus and John of Montecorvino. (Jord. p. 53; Cathay, p. 217.) "Stitched vessels," Sir B. Frere writes, "are still used. I have seen them of 200 tons burden; but they are being driven out by iron-fastened vessels, as iron gets cheaper, except where (as on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts) the pliancy of a stitched boat is useful in a surf. Till the last few years, when steamers have begun to take all the best horses, the Arab horses bound to Bombay almost all came in the way Marco Polo describes." Some of them do still, standing over a date cargo, and the result of this combination gives rise to an extraordinary traffic in the Bombay bazaar. From what Colonel Pelly tells me, the stitched build in the Gulf is now confined to fishing-boats, and is disused for sea-going craft.
[Friar Odoric (Cathay, I. p. 57) mentioned these vessels: "In this country men make use of a kind of vessel which they call Jase, which is fastened only with stitching of twine. On one of these vessels I embarked, and I could find no iron at all therein." Jase is for the Arabic Djehaz.—H. C.]
The fish-oil used to rub the ships was whale-oil. The old Arab voyagers of the 9th century describe the fishermen of Siraf in the Gulf as cutting up the whale-blubber and drawing the oil from it, which was mixed with other stuff, and used to rub the joints of ships' planking. (Reinaud, I. 146.)
Both Montecorvino and Polo, in this passage, specify one rudder, as if it was a peculiarity of these ships worth noting. The fact is that, in the Mediterranean at least, the double rudders of the ancients kept their place to a great extent through the Middle Ages. A Marseilles MS. of the 13th century, quoted in Ducange, says: "A ship requires three rudders, two in place, and one to spare." Another: "Every two-ruddered bark shall pay a groat each voyage; every one-ruddered bark shall," etc. (See Due. under Timonus and Temo.) Numerous proofs of the use of two rudders in the 13th century will be found in "Documenti inediti riguardanti le due Crociate di S. Ludovico IX., Re di Francia, etc., da L. T. Belgrano, Genova, 1859." Thus in a specification of ships to be built at Genoa for the king (p. 7), each is to have "Timones duo, affaiticos, grossitudinis palmorum viiii et dimidiae, longitudinis cubitorum xxiiii." Extracts given by Capmany, regarding the equipment of galleys, show the same thing, for he is probably mistaken in saying that one of the dos timones specified was a spare one. Joinville (p. 205) gives incidental evidence of the same: "Those Marseilles ships have each two rudders, with each a tiller (? tison) attached to it in such an ingenious way that you can turn the ship right or left as fast as you would turn a horse. So on the Friday the king was sitting upon one of these tillers, when he called me and said to me," etc.[4] Francesco da Barberino, a poet of the 13th century, in the 7th part of his Documenti d'Amore (printed at Rome in 1640), which instructs the lover to whose lot it may fall to escort his lady on a sea-voyage (instructions carried so far as to provide even for the case of her death at sea!), alludes more than once to these plural rudders. Thus—
"—— se vedessi avenire
Che vento ti rompesse
Timoni …
In luogo di timoni
Fa spere[5] e in aqua poni." (P. 272-273.)
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE DOUBLE RUDDER OF THE MIDDLE AGES 12th Century Illumination (After Pertz)
Seal of Winchelsea.
12th Century Illumination (After Pertz)
From Leaning Tower (After Jal)
After Spinello Aretini at Siena
From Monument of St Peter Martyr]
And again, when about to enter a port, it is needful to be on the alert and ready to run in case of a hostile reception, so the galley should enter stern foremost—a movement which he reminds his lover involves the reversal of the ordinary use of the two rudders:—
"L' un timon leva suso
L' altro leggier tien giuso,
Ma convien levar mano
Non mica com soleàno,
Ma per contraro, e face
Cosi 'l guidar verace." (P. 275.)
A representation of a vessel over the door of the Leaning Tower at Pisa shows this arrangement, which is also discernible in the frescoes of galley-fights by Spinello Aretini, in the Municipal Palace at Siena.
[Godinho de Eredia (1613), describing the smaller vessels of Malacca which he calls bâlos in ch. 13, De Embarcaçôes, says: "At the poop they have two rudders, one on each side to steer with." E por poupa dos bâllos, tem 2 lêmes, hum en cada lado pera o governo. (Malacca, l'Inde mérid. et le Cathay, Bruxelles, 1882, 4to, f. 26.)—H. C.]
The midship rudder seems to have been the more usual in the western seas, and the double quarter-rudders in the Mediterranean. The former are sometimes styled Navarresques and the latter Latins. Yet early seals of some of the Cinque Ports show vessels with the double rudder; one of which (that of Winchelsea) is given in the cut.
In the Mediterranean the latter was still in occasional use late in the 16th century. Captain Pantero Pantera in his book, L'Armata Navale (Rome, 1614, p. 44), says that the Galeasses, or great galleys, had the helm alla Navarresca, but also a great oar on each side of it to assist in turning the ship. And I observe that the great galeasses which precede the Christian line of battle at Lepanto, in one of the frescoes by Vasari in the Royal Hall leading to the Sistine Chapel, have the quarter-rudder very distinctly.
The Chinese appear occasionally to employ it, as seems to be indicated in a woodcut of a vessel of war which I have traced from a Chinese book in the National Library at Paris. (See above, p. 37.) [For the Chinese words for rudder, see p. 126 of J. Edkins' article on Chinese Names for Boats and Boat Gear, Jour. N. China Br. R. As. Soc. N.S. XI. 1876.—H. C.] It is also used by certain craft of the Indian Archipelago, as appears from Mr. Wallace's description of the Prau in which he sailed from Macassar to the Aru Islands. And on the Caspian, it is stated in Smith's "Dict. of Antiquities" (art. Gubernaculum), the practice remained in force till late times. A modern traveller was nearly wrecked on that sea, because the two rudders were in the hands of two pilots who spoke different languages, and did not understand each other!
(Besides the works quoted see Jal, Archéologie Navale, II. 437-438, and Capmany, Memorias, III. 61.)
[Major Sykes remarks (Persia, ch. xxiii.): "Some unrecorded event, probably the sight of the unseaworthy craft, which had not an ounce of iron in their composition, made our travellers decide that the risks of the sea were too great, so that we have the pleasure of accompanying them back to Kermán and thence northwards to Khorasán."—H. C.]
NOTE 4.—So also at Bander Abbási Tavernier says it was so unhealthy that foreigners could not stop there beyond March; everybody left it in April. Not a hundredth part of the population, says Kämpfer, remained in the city. Not a beggar would stop for any reward! The rich went to the towns of the interior or to the cool recesses of the mountains, the poor took refuge in the palm-groves at the distance of a day or two from the city. A place called 'Ishin, some 12 miles north of the city, was a favourite resort of the European and Hindu merchants. Here were fine gardens, spacious baths, and a rivulet of fresh and limpid water.
The custom of lying in water is mentioned also by Sir John Maundevile, and it was adopted by the Portuguese when they occupied Insular Hormuz, as P. della Valle and Linschoten relate. The custom is still common during great heats, in Sind and Mekran (Sir B. F.).
An anonymous ancient geography (Liber Junioris Philosophi) speaks of a people in India who live in the Terrestrial Paradise, and lead the life of the Golden Age…. The sun is so hot that they remain all day in the river!
The heat in the Straits of Hormuz drove Abdurrazzak into an anticipation of a verse familiar to English schoolboys: "Even the bird of rapid flight was burnt up in the heights of heaven, as well as the fish in the depths of the sea!" (Tavern. Bk. V. ch. xxiii.; Am. Exot. 716, 762; Müller, Geog. Gr. Min. II. 514; India in XV. Cent. p. 49.)
NOTE 5.—A like description of the effect of the Simúm on the human body is given by Ibn Batuta, Chardin, A. Hamilton, Tavernier, Thévenot, etc.; and the first of these travellers speaks specially of its prevalence in the desert near Hormuz, and of the many graves of its victims; but I have met with no reasonable account of its poisonous action. I will quote Chardin, already quoted at greater length by Marsden, as the most complete parallel to the text: "The most surprising effect of the wind is not the mere fact of its causing death, but its operation on the bodies of those who are killed by it. It seems as if they became decomposed without losing shape, so that you would think them to be merely asleep, when they are not merely dead, but in such a state that if you take hold of any part of the body it comes away in your hand. And the finger penetrates such a body as if it were so much dust." (III. 286.)
Burton, on his journey to Medina, says: "The people assured me that this wind never killed a man in their Allah-favoured land. I doubt the fact. At Bir Abbas the body of an Arnaut was brought in swollen, and decomposed rapidly, the true diagnosis of death by the poison-wind." Khanikoff is very distinct as to the immediate fatality of the desert wind at Khabis, near Kermán, but does not speak of the effect on the body after death. This Major St. John does, describing a case that occurred in June, 1871, when he was halting, during intense heat, at the post-house of Pasangan, a few miles south of Kom. The bodies were brought in of two poor men, who had tried to start some hours before sunset, and were struck down by the poisonous blast within half-a-mile of the post-house. "It was found impossible to wash them before burial…. Directly the limbs were touched they separated from the trunk." (Oc. Highways, ut. sup.) About 1790, when Timúr Sháh of Kabul sent an army under the Sirdár-i-Sirdárán to put down a revolt in Meshed, this force on its return was struck by Simúm in the Plain of Farrah, and the Sirdár perished, with a great number of his men. (Ferrier, H. of the Afghans, 102; J. R. G. S. XXVI. 217; Khan. Mém. 210.)
NOTE 6.—The History of Hormuz is very imperfectly known. What I have met with on the subject consists of—(1) An abstract by Teixeira of a chronicle of Hormuz, written by Thurán Sháh, who was himself sovereign of Hormuz, and died in 1377; (2) some contemporary notices by Wassáf, which are extracted by Hammer in his History of the Ilkhans; (3) some notices from Persian sources in the 2nd Decade of De Barros (ch. ii.). The last do not go further back than Gordun Sháh, the father of Thurán Sháh, to whom they erroneously ascribe the first migration to the Island.
One of Teixeira's Princes is called Ruknuddin Mahmud, and with him Marsden and Pauthier have identified Polo's Ruomedam Acomet, or as he is called on another occasion in the Geog. Text, Maimodi Acomet. This, however, is out of the question, for the death of Ruknuddin is assigned to A.H. 675 (A.D. 1277), whilst there can, I think, be no doubt that Marco's account refers to the period of his return from China, viz. 1293 or thereabouts.
We find in Teixeira that the ruler who succeeded in 1290 was Amir Masa'úd, who obtained the Government by the murder of his brother Saifuddin Nazrat. Masa'úd was cruel and oppressive; most of the influential people withdrew to Baháuddin Ayaz, whom Saifuddin had made Wazir of Kalhát on the Arabian coast. This Wazir assembled a force and drove out Masa'úd after he had reigned three years. He fled to Kermán and died there some years afterwards.
Baháuddin, who had originally been a slave of Saifuddin Nazrat's, succeeded in establishing his authority. But about 1300 great bodies of Turks (i.e. Tartars) issuing from Turkestan ravaged many provinces of Persia, including Kermán and Hormuz. The people, unable to bear the frequency of such visitations, retired first to the island of Kishm, and then to that of Jerún, on which last was built the city of New Hormuz, afterwards so famous. This is Teixeira's account from Thurán Sháh, so far as we are concerned with it. As regards the transfer of the city it agrees substantially with Abulfeda's, which we have already quoted (supra, note 1).
Hammer's account from Wassáf is frightfully confused, chiefly I should suppose from Hammer's own fault; for among other things he assumes that Hormuz was always on an island, and he distinguishes between the Island of Hormuz and the Island of Jerún! We gather, however, that Hormuz before the Mongol time formed a government subordinate to the Salghur Atabegs of Fars (see note 1, ch. xv.), and when the power of that Dynasty was falling, the governor Mahmúd Kalháti, established himself as Prince of Hormuz, and became the founder of a petty dynasty, being evidently identical with Teixeira's Ruknuddin Mahmud above-named, who is represented as reigning from 1246 to 1277. In Wassáf we find, as in Teixeira, Mahmúd's son Masa'úd killing his brother Nazrat, and Baháuddin expelling Masa'úd. It is true that Hammer's surprising muddle makes Nazrat kill Masa'úd; however, as a few lines lower we find Masa'úd alive and Nazrat dead, we may safely venture on this correction. But we find also that Masa'úd appears as Ruknuddin Masa'úd, and that Baháuddin does not assume the princely authority himself, but proclaims that of Fakhruddin Ahmed Ben Ibrahim At-Thaibi, a personage who does not appear in Teixeira at all. A MS. history, quoted by Ouseley, does mention Fakhruddin, and ascribes to him the transfer to Jerún. Wassáf seems to allude to Baháuddin as a sort of Sea Rover, occupying the islands of Larek and Jerún, whilst Fakhruddin reigned at Hormuz. It is difficult to understand the relation between the two.
It is possible that Polo's memory made some confusion between the names of RUKNUDDIN Masa'úd and Fakhruddin AHMED, but I incline to think the latter is his RUOMEDAN AHMED. For Teixeira tells us that Masa'úd took refuge at the court of Kermán, and Wassáf represents him as supported in his claims by the Atabeg of that province, whilst we see that Polo seems to represent Ruomedan Acomat as in hostility with that prince. To add to the imbroglio I find in a passage of Wassáf Malik Fakhruddin Ahmed at-Thaibi sent by Ghazan Khan in 1297 as ambassador to Khanbalig, staying there some years, and dying off the Coromandel coast on his return in 1305. (Elliot, iii. pp. 45-47.)
Masa'úd's seeking help from Kermán to reinstate him is not the first case of the same kind that occurs in Teixeira's chronicle, so there may have been some kind of colour for Marco's representation of the Prince of Hormuz as the vassal of the Atabeg of Kermán ("l'homme de cest roy de Creman;" see Prologue, ch. xiv. note 2). M. Khanikoff denies the possibility of the existence of any royal dynasty at Hormuz at this period. That there was a dynasty of Maliks of Hormuz, however, at this period we must believe on the concurring testimony of Marco, of Wassáf, and of Thurán Sháh. There was also, it would seem, another quasi-independent principality in the Island of Kais. (Hammer's Ilch. II. 50, 51; Teixeira, Relacion de los Reyes de Hormuz; Khan. Notice, p. 34.)
The ravages of the Tartars which drove the people of Hormuz from their city may have begun with the incursions of the Nigudaris and Karaunahs, but they probably came to a climax in the great raid in 1299 of the Chaghataian Prince Kotlogh Shah, son of Dua Khan, a part of whose bands besieged the city itself, though they are said to have been repulsed by Baháuddin Ayas.
[The Dynasty of Hormuz was founded about 1060 by a Yemen chief Mohammed Dirhem Ko, and remained subject to Kermán till 1249, when Rokn ed-din Mahmúd III. Kalháti (1242-1277) made himself independent. The immediate successors of Rokn ed-din were Saif ed-din Nazrat (1277-1290), Masa'úd (1290-1293), Bahad ed-din Ayaz Sayfin (1293-1311). Hormuz was captured by the Portuguese in 1510 and by the Persians in 1622.—H. C.]
NOTE 7.—The indications of this alternative route to Kermán are very vague, but it may probably have been that through Finn, Tárum, and the Sírján district, passing out of the plain of Hormuz by the eastern flank of the Ginao mountain. This road would pass near the hot springs at the base of the said mountain, Sarga, Khurkhu, and Ginao, which are described by Kämpfer. Being more or less sulphureous they are likely to be useful in skin-diseases: indeed, Hamilton speaks of their efficacy in these. (I. 95.) The salt-streams are numerous on this line, and dates are abundant. The bitterness of the bread was, however, more probably due to another cause, as Major Smith has kindly pointed out to me: "Throughout the mountains in the south of Persia, which are generally covered with dwarf oak, the people are in the habit of making bread of the acorns, or of the acorns mixed with wheat or barley. It is dark in colour, and very hard, bitter, and unpalatable."
Major St. John also noticed the bitterness of the bread in Kermán, but his servants attributed it to the presence in the wheat-fields of a bitter leguminous plant, with a yellowish white flower, which the Kermánis were too lazy to separate, so that much remained in the thrashing, and imparted its bitter flavour to the grain (surely the Tare of our Lord's Parable!).
[General Houtum-Schindler says (l.c. p. 496): "Marco Polo's return journey was, I am inclined to think, viâ Urzú and Báft, the shortest and most direct road. The road viâ Tárum and Sírján is very seldom taken by travellers intending to go to Kermán; it is only frequented by the caravans going between Bender 'Abbás and Bahrámábád, three stages west of Kermán. Hot springs, 'curing itch,' I noticed at two places on the Urzú-Báft road. There were some near Qal'ah Asgber and others near Dashtáb; they were frequented by people suffering from skin-diseases, and were highly sulphureous; the water of those near Dashtáb turned a silver ring black after two hours' immersion. Another reason of my advocating the Urzú road is that the bitter bread spoken of by Marco Polo is only found on it, viz. at Báft and in Bardshír. In Sírján, to the west, and on the roads to the east, the bread is sweet. The bitter taste is from the Khúr, a bitter leguminous plant, which grows among the wheat, and whose grains the people are too lazy to pick out. There is not a single oak between Bender 'Abbás and Kermán; none of the inhabitants seemed to know what an acorn was. A person at Báft, who had once gone to Kerbelá viâ Kermánsháh and Baghdád, recognised my sketch of tree and fruit immediately, having seen oak and acorn between Kermánsháh and Qasr-i-Shírín on the Baghdád road." Major Sykes writes (ch. xxiii.): "The above description undoubtedly refers to the main winter route, which runs viâ Sírján. This is demonstrated by the fact that under the Kuh-i-Ginao, the summer station of Bandar Abbás, there is a magnificent sulphur spring, which, welling from an orifice 4 feet in diameter, forms a stream some 30 yards wide. Its temperature at the source is 113 degrees, and its therapeutic properties are highly appreciated. As to the bitterness of the bread, it is suggested in the notes that it was caused by being mixed with acorns, but, to-day at any rate, there are no oak forests in this part of Persia, and I would urge that it is better to accept our traveller's statement, that it was due to the bitterness of the water."—However, I prefer Gen. Houtum-Schindler's theory.—H. C.]
_______________
Notes:
[1] It is but fair to say that scholars so eminent as Professors Sprenger and Blochmann have considered the original suggestion lawful and probable. Indeed, Mr. Blochmann says in a letter: "After studying a language for years, one acquires a natural feeling for anything un-idiomatic; but I must confess I see nothing un-Persian in rúdbár-i-duzd, nor in rúdbár-i-lass…. How common lass is, you may see from one fact, that it occurs in children's reading-books." We must not take Reobarles in Marco's French as rhyming to (French) Charles; every syllable sounds. It is remarkable that Las, as the name of a small State near our Sind frontier, is said to mean, "in the language of the country," a level plain. (J. A. S. B. VIII. 195.) It is not clear what is meant by the language of the country. The chief is a Brahui, the people are Lumri or Numri Bilúchis, who are, according to Tod, of Jat descent.
[2] Sir Henry Rawlinson objects to this identification (which is the same that Dr. Karl Müller adopts), saying that Organa is more probably "Angan, formerly Argan." To this I cannot assent. Nearchus sails 300 stadia from the mouth of Anamis to Oaracta, and on his way passes Organa. Taking 600 stadia to the degree (Dr. Müller's value), I make it just 300 stadia from the mouth of the Hormuz creek to the eastern point of Kishm. Organa must have been either Jerún or Lárek; Angan (Hanjám of Mas'udi) is out of the question. And as a straight run must have passed quite close to Jerún, not to Larek, I find the former most probable. Nearchus next day proceeds 200 stadia along Oaracta, and anchors in sight of another island (Neptune's) which was separated by 40 stadia from Oaracta. This was Angan; no other island answers, and for this the distances answer with singular precision.
[3] Moore refers to Persian Tales.
[4] This tison can be seen in the cuts from the tomb of St. Peter Martyr and the seal of Winchelsea.
[5] Spere, bundles of spars, etc., dragged overboard.
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
by admin » Tue Mar 27, 2018 8:17 pm
CHAPTER XX. OF THE WEARISOME AND DESERT ROAD THAT HAS NOW TO BE TRAVELLED.
On departing from the city of Kerman you find the road for seven days most wearisome; and I will tell you how this is.[NOTE 1] The first three days you meet with no water, or next to none. And what little you do meet with is bitter green stuff, so salt that no one can drink it; and in fact if you drink a drop of it, it will set you purging ten times at least by the way. It is the same with the salt which is made from those streams; no one dares to make use of it, because of the excessive purging which it occasions. Hence it is necessary to carry water for the people to last these three days; as for the cattle, they must needs drink of the bad water I have mentioned, as there is no help for it, and their great thirst makes them do so. But it scours them to such a degree that sometimes they die of it. In all those three days you meet with no human habitation; it is all desert, and the extremity of drought. Even of wild beasts there are none, for there is nothing for them to eat.[NOTE 2]
After those three days of desert [you arrive at a stream of fresh water running underground, but along which there are holes broken in here and there, perhaps undermined by the stream, at which you can get sight of it. It has an abundant supply, and travellers, worn with the hardships of the desert, here rest and refresh themselves and their beasts.][NOTE 3]
You then enter another desert which extends for four days; it is very much like the former except that you do see some wild asses. And at the termination of these four days of desert the kingdom of Kerman comes to an end, and you find another city which is called Cobinan.
NOTE 1. ["The present road from Kermán to Kúbenán is to Zerend about 50 miles, to the Sár i Benán 15 miles, thence to Kúbenán 30 miles—total 95 miles. Marco Polo cannot have taken the direct road to Kúbenán, as it took him seven days to reach it. As he speaks of waterless deserts, he probably took a circuitous route to the east of the mountains, viâ Kúhpáyeh and the desert lying to the north of Khabis." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. pp. 496-497.) (Cf. Major Sykes, ch. xxiii.)—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—This description of the Desert of Kermán, says Mr. Khanikoff, "is very correct. As the only place in the Desert of Lút where water is found is the dirty, salt, bitter, and green water of the rivulet called Shor-Rúd (the Salt River), we can have no doubt of the direction of Marco Polo's route from Kermán so far." Nevertheless I do not agree with Khanikoff that the route lay N.E. in the direction of Ambar and Kain, for a reason which will appear under the next chapter. I imagine the route to have been nearly due north from Kermán, in the direction of Tabbas or of Tún. And even such a route would, according to Khanikoff's own map, pass the Shor-Rúd, though at a higher point.
I extract a few lines from that gentleman's narrative: "In proportion as we got deeper into the desert, the soil became more and more arid; at daybreak I could still discover a few withered plants of Caligonum and Salsola, and not far from the same spot I saw a lark and another bird of a whitish colour, the last living things that we beheld in this dismal solitude…. The desert had now completely assumed the character of a land accursed, as the natives call it. Not the smallest blade of grass, no indication of animal life vivified the prospect; no sound but such as came from our own caravan broke the dreary silence of the void." (Mém. p. 176.)
[Major P. Molesworth Sykes (Geog. Jour. X. p. 578) writes: "At Tun, I was on the northern edge of the great Dash-i-Lut (Naked Desert), which lay between us and Kerman, and which had not been traversed, in this particular portion, since the illustrious Marco Polo crossed it, in the opposite direction, when travelling from Kerman to 'Tonocain' viâ Cobinan." Major Sykes (Persia, ch. iii.) seems to prove that geographers have, without sufficient grounds, divided the great desert of Persia into two regions, that to the north being termed Dasht-i-Kavir, and that further south the Dasht-i-Lut—and that Lut is the one name for the whole desert, Dash-i-Lut being almost a redundancy, and that Kavir (the arabic Kafr) is applied to every saline swamp. "This great desert stretches from a few miles out of Tehrán practically to the British frontier, a distance of about 700 miles."—H. C.]
NOTE 3.—I can have no doubt of the genuineness of this passage from Ramusio. Indeed some such passage is necessary; otherwise why distinguish between three days of desert and four days more of desert? The underground stream was probably a subterraneous canal (called Kanát or Kárez), such as is common in Persia; often conducted from a great distance. Here it may have been a relic of abandoned cultivation. Khanikoff, on the road between Kermán and Yezd, not far west of that which I suppose Marco to be travelling, says: "At the fifteen inhabited spots marked upon the map, they have water which has been brought from a great distance, and at considerable cost, by means of subterranean galleries, to which you descend by large and deep wells. Although the water flows at some depth, its course is tracked upon the surface by a line of more abundant vegetation." (Ib. p. 200.) Elphinstone says he has heard of such subterranean conduits 36 miles in length. (I. 398.) Polybius speaks of them: "There is no sign of water on the surface; but there are many underground channels, and these supply tanks in the desert, that are known only to the initiated…. At the time when the Persians got the upper hand in Asia, they used to concede to such persons as brought spring-water to places previously destitute of irrigation, the usufruct for five generations. And Taurus being rife with springs, they incurred all the expense and trouble that was needed to form these underground channels to great distances, insomuch that in these days even the people who make use of the water don't know where the channels begin, or whence the water comes." (X. 28.)
On departing from the city of Kerman you find the road for seven days most wearisome; and I will tell you how this is.[NOTE 1] The first three days you meet with no water, or next to none. And what little you do meet with is bitter green stuff, so salt that no one can drink it; and in fact if you drink a drop of it, it will set you purging ten times at least by the way. It is the same with the salt which is made from those streams; no one dares to make use of it, because of the excessive purging which it occasions. Hence it is necessary to carry water for the people to last these three days; as for the cattle, they must needs drink of the bad water I have mentioned, as there is no help for it, and their great thirst makes them do so. But it scours them to such a degree that sometimes they die of it. In all those three days you meet with no human habitation; it is all desert, and the extremity of drought. Even of wild beasts there are none, for there is nothing for them to eat.[NOTE 2]
After those three days of desert [you arrive at a stream of fresh water running underground, but along which there are holes broken in here and there, perhaps undermined by the stream, at which you can get sight of it. It has an abundant supply, and travellers, worn with the hardships of the desert, here rest and refresh themselves and their beasts.][NOTE 3]
You then enter another desert which extends for four days; it is very much like the former except that you do see some wild asses. And at the termination of these four days of desert the kingdom of Kerman comes to an end, and you find another city which is called Cobinan.
NOTE 1. ["The present road from Kermán to Kúbenán is to Zerend about 50 miles, to the Sár i Benán 15 miles, thence to Kúbenán 30 miles—total 95 miles. Marco Polo cannot have taken the direct road to Kúbenán, as it took him seven days to reach it. As he speaks of waterless deserts, he probably took a circuitous route to the east of the mountains, viâ Kúhpáyeh and the desert lying to the north of Khabis." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. pp. 496-497.) (Cf. Major Sykes, ch. xxiii.)—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—This description of the Desert of Kermán, says Mr. Khanikoff, "is very correct. As the only place in the Desert of Lút where water is found is the dirty, salt, bitter, and green water of the rivulet called Shor-Rúd (the Salt River), we can have no doubt of the direction of Marco Polo's route from Kermán so far." Nevertheless I do not agree with Khanikoff that the route lay N.E. in the direction of Ambar and Kain, for a reason which will appear under the next chapter. I imagine the route to have been nearly due north from Kermán, in the direction of Tabbas or of Tún. And even such a route would, according to Khanikoff's own map, pass the Shor-Rúd, though at a higher point.
I extract a few lines from that gentleman's narrative: "In proportion as we got deeper into the desert, the soil became more and more arid; at daybreak I could still discover a few withered plants of Caligonum and Salsola, and not far from the same spot I saw a lark and another bird of a whitish colour, the last living things that we beheld in this dismal solitude…. The desert had now completely assumed the character of a land accursed, as the natives call it. Not the smallest blade of grass, no indication of animal life vivified the prospect; no sound but such as came from our own caravan broke the dreary silence of the void." (Mém. p. 176.)
[Major P. Molesworth Sykes (Geog. Jour. X. p. 578) writes: "At Tun, I was on the northern edge of the great Dash-i-Lut (Naked Desert), which lay between us and Kerman, and which had not been traversed, in this particular portion, since the illustrious Marco Polo crossed it, in the opposite direction, when travelling from Kerman to 'Tonocain' viâ Cobinan." Major Sykes (Persia, ch. iii.) seems to prove that geographers have, without sufficient grounds, divided the great desert of Persia into two regions, that to the north being termed Dasht-i-Kavir, and that further south the Dasht-i-Lut—and that Lut is the one name for the whole desert, Dash-i-Lut being almost a redundancy, and that Kavir (the arabic Kafr) is applied to every saline swamp. "This great desert stretches from a few miles out of Tehrán practically to the British frontier, a distance of about 700 miles."—H. C.]
NOTE 3.—I can have no doubt of the genuineness of this passage from Ramusio. Indeed some such passage is necessary; otherwise why distinguish between three days of desert and four days more of desert? The underground stream was probably a subterraneous canal (called Kanát or Kárez), such as is common in Persia; often conducted from a great distance. Here it may have been a relic of abandoned cultivation. Khanikoff, on the road between Kermán and Yezd, not far west of that which I suppose Marco to be travelling, says: "At the fifteen inhabited spots marked upon the map, they have water which has been brought from a great distance, and at considerable cost, by means of subterranean galleries, to which you descend by large and deep wells. Although the water flows at some depth, its course is tracked upon the surface by a line of more abundant vegetation." (Ib. p. 200.) Elphinstone says he has heard of such subterranean conduits 36 miles in length. (I. 398.) Polybius speaks of them: "There is no sign of water on the surface; but there are many underground channels, and these supply tanks in the desert, that are known only to the initiated…. At the time when the Persians got the upper hand in Asia, they used to concede to such persons as brought spring-water to places previously destitute of irrigation, the usufruct for five generations. And Taurus being rife with springs, they incurred all the expense and trouble that was needed to form these underground channels to great distances, insomuch that in these days even the people who make use of the water don't know where the channels begin, or whence the water comes." (X. 28.)
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Re: The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo and Rustichello
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CHAPTER XXI. CONCERNING THE CITY OF COBINAN AND THE THINGS THAT ARE MADE THERE.
Cobinan is a large town.[NOTE 1] The people worship Mahommet. There is much Iron and Steel and Ondanique, and they make steel mirrors of great size and beauty. They also prepare both Tutia (a thing very good for the eyes) and Spodium; and I will tell you the process.
They have a vein of a certain earth which has the required quality, and this they put into a great flaming furnace, whilst over the furnace there is an iron grating. The smoke and moisture, expelled from the earth of which I speak, adhere to the iron grating, and thus form Tutia, whilst the slag that is left after burning is the Spodium.[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1.—KUH-BANÁN is mentioned by Mokaddasi (A.D. 985) as one of the cities of Bardesír, the most northerly of the five circles into which he divides Kermán. (See Sprenger, Post- und Reise-routen des Orients, p. 77.) It is the subject of an article in the Geog. Dictionary of Yákút, though it has been there mistranscribed into Kubiyán and Kukiyán. (See Leipzig ed. 1869, iv. p. 316, and Barbier de Meynard, Dict. de la Perse, p. 498.) And it is also indicated by Mr. Abbott (J. R. G. S. XXV. 25) as the name of a district of Kermán, lying some distance to the east of his route when somewhat less than half-way between Yezd and Kermán. It would thus, I apprehend, be on or near the route between Kermán and Tabbas; one which I believe has been traced by no modern traveller. We may be certain that there is now no place at Kuh-Banán deserving the title of une cité grant, nor is it easy to believe that there was in Polo's time; he applies such terms too profusely. The meaning of the name is perhaps "Hill of the Terebinths, or Wild Pistachioes," "a tree which grows abundantly in the recesses of bleak, stony, and desert mountains, e.g. about Shamákhi, about Shiraz, and in the deserts of Luristan and Lar." (Kämpfer, 409, 413.)
["It is strange that Marco Polo speaks of Kúbenán only on his return journey from Kermán; on the down journey he must have been told that Kúbenán was in close proximity; it is even probable that he passed there, as Persian travellers of those times, when going from Kermán to Yazd, and vice versá, always called at Kúbenán." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. p. 490.) In all histories this name is written Kúbenán, not Kúhbenán; the pronunciation to-day is Kóbenán and Kobenún.—H. C.]
I had thought my identification of Cobinan original, but a communication from Mr. Abbott, and the opportunity which this procured me of seeing his MS. Report already referred to, showed that he had anticipated me many years ago. The following is an extract: "Districts of Kerman * * * Kooh Benan. This is a hilly district abounding in fruits, such as grapes, peaches, pomegranates, sinjid (sweet-willow), walnuts, melons. A great deal of madder and some asafoetida is produced there. This is no doubt the country alluded to by Marco Polo, under the name of Cobinam, as producing iron, brass, and tutty, and which is still said to produce iron, copper, and tootea." There appear to be lead mines also in the district, as well as asbestos and sulphur. Mr. Abbott adds the names of nine villages, which he was not able to verify by comparison. These are Púz, Tarz, Gújard, Aspaj, Kuh-i-Gabr, Dahnah, Búghín, Bassab, Radk. The position of Kuh Banán is stated to lie between Bahabád (a place also mentioned by Yákút as producing Tutia) and Ráví, but this does not help us, and for approximate position we can only fall back on the note in Mr. Abbott's field-book, as published in the J. R. G. S., viz. that the District lay in the mountains E.S.E. from a caravanserai 10 miles S.E. of Gudran. To get the seven marches of Polo's Itinerary we must carry the Town of Kuh Banán as far north as this indication can possibly admit, for Abbott made only five and a half marches from the spot where this observation was made to Kermán. Perhaps Polo's route deviated for the sake of the fresh water. That a district, such as Mr. Abbott's Report speaks of, should lie unnoticed, in a tract which our maps represent as part of the Great Desert, shows again how very defective our geography of Persia still is.
["During the next stage to Darband, we passed ruins that I believe to be those of Marco Polo's 'Cobinan' as the modern Kúhbenán does not at all fit in with the great traveller's description, and it is just as well to remember that in the East the caravan routes seldom change." (Captain P. M. Sykes, Geog. Jour. X. p. 580.—See Persia, ch. xxiii.)
Kuh Banán has been visited by Mr. E. Stack, of the Indian Civil Service. (Six Months in Persia, London, 1882, I. 230.)—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—Tutty (i.e. Tutia) is in modern English an impure oxide of zinc, collected from the flues where brass is made; and this appears to be precisely what Polo describes, unless it be that in his account the production of tutia from an ore of zinc is represented as the object and not an accident of the process. What he says reads almost like a condensed translation of Galen's account of Pompholyx and Spodos: "Pompholyx is produced in copper-smelting as Cadmia is; and it is also produced from Cadmia (carbonate of zinc) when put in the furnace, as is done (for instance) in Cyprus. The master of the works there, having no copper ready for smelting, ordered some pompholyx to be prepared from cadmia in my presence. Small pieces of cadmia were thrown into the fire in front of the copper-blast. The furnace top was covered, with no vent at the crown, and intercepted the soot of the roasted cadmia. This, when collected, constitutes Pompholyx, whilst that which falls on the hearth is called Spodos, a great deal of which is got in copper-smelting." Pompholyx, he adds, is an ingredient in salves for eye discharges and pustules. (Galen, De Simpl. Medic., p. ix. in Latin ed., Venice, 1576.) Matthioli, after quoting this, says that Pompholyx was commonly known in the laboratories by the Arabic name of Tutia. I see that pure oxide of zinc is stated to form in modern practice a valuable eye-ointment.
Teixeira speaks of tutia as found only in Kermán, in a range of mountains twelve parasangs from the capital. The ore got here was kneaded with water, and set to bake in crucibles in a potter's kiln. When well baked, the crucibles were lifted and emptied, and the tutia carried in boxes to Hormuz for sale. This corresponds with a modern account in Milburne, which says that the tutia imported to India from the Gulf is made from an argillaceous ore of zinc, which is moulded into tubular cakes, and baked to a moderate hardness. The accurate Garcia da Horta is wrong for once in saying that the tutia of Kermán is no mineral, but the ash of a certain tree called Goan.
(Matth. on Dioscorides, Ven. 1565, pp. 1338-40; Teixeira, Relacion de Persia, p. 121; Milburne's Or. Commerce, I. 139; Garcia, f. 21 v.; Eng. Cyc., art. Zinc.)
[General A. Houtum-Schindler (Jour. R. As. Soc. N.S. XIII. October, 1881, p. 497) says: "The name Tútíá for collyrium is now not used in Kermán. Tútíá, when the name stands alone, is sulphate of copper, which in other parts of Persia is known as Kát-i-Kebúd; Tútíá-i-sabz (green Tútíá) is sulphate of iron, also called Záj-i-síyah. A piece of Tútíá-i-zard (yellow Tútíá) shown to me was alum, generally called Záj-i-safíd; and a piece of Tútíá-í-safíd (white Tútíá) seemed to be an argillaceous zinc ore. Either of these may have been the earth mentioned by Marco Polo as being put into the furnace. The lampblack used as collyrium is always called Surmah. This at Kermán itself is the soot produced by the flame of wicks, steeped in castor oil or goat's fat, upon earthenware saucers. In the high mountainous districts of the province, Kúbenán, Páríz, and others, Surmah is the soot of the Gavan plant (Garcia's goan). This plant, a species of Astragalus, is on those mountains very fat and succulent; from it also exudes the Tragacanth gum. The soot is used dry as an eye-powder, or, mixed with tallow, as an eye-salve. It is occasionally collected on iron gratings.
"Tútíá is the Arabicised word dúdhá, Persian for smokes.
"The Shems-ul-loghát calls Tútíá a medicine for eyes, and a stone used for the fabrication of Surmah. The Tohfeh says Tútíá is of three kinds—yellow and blue mineral Tútíá, Tútíá-i-qalam (collyrium) made from roots, and Tútíá resulting from the process of smelting copper ore. 'The best Tútíá-i-qalam comes from Kermán.' It adds, 'Some authors say Surmah is sulphuret of antimony, others say it is a composition of iron'; I should say any black composition used for the eyes is Surmah, be it lampblack, antimony, iron, or a mixture of all.
"Teixeira's Tútíá was an impure oxide of zinc, perhaps the above-mentioned Tútíá-i-safíd, baked into cakes; it was probably the East India Company's Lapis Tútíá, also called Tutty. The Company's Tutenague and Tutenage, occasionally confounded with Tutty, was the so-called 'Chinese Copper,' an alloy of copper, zinc, and iron, brought from China."
Major Sykes (ch. xxiii.) writes: "I translated Marco's description of tutia (which is also the modern Persian name), to a khán of Kubenán, and he assured me that the process was the same to-day; spodium he knew nothing about, but the sulphate of zinc is found in the hills to the east of Kubenán."
Heyd (Com. II. p. 675) says in a note: "Il résulte de l'ensemble de ce passage que les matières désignées par Marco Polo sous le nom de 'espodie' (spodium) étaient des scories métalliques; en général, le mot spodium désigne les résidus de la combustion des matières végétales ou des os (de l'ivoire)."—H. C.]
Cobinan is a large town.[NOTE 1] The people worship Mahommet. There is much Iron and Steel and Ondanique, and they make steel mirrors of great size and beauty. They also prepare both Tutia (a thing very good for the eyes) and Spodium; and I will tell you the process.
They have a vein of a certain earth which has the required quality, and this they put into a great flaming furnace, whilst over the furnace there is an iron grating. The smoke and moisture, expelled from the earth of which I speak, adhere to the iron grating, and thus form Tutia, whilst the slag that is left after burning is the Spodium.[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1.—KUH-BANÁN is mentioned by Mokaddasi (A.D. 985) as one of the cities of Bardesír, the most northerly of the five circles into which he divides Kermán. (See Sprenger, Post- und Reise-routen des Orients, p. 77.) It is the subject of an article in the Geog. Dictionary of Yákút, though it has been there mistranscribed into Kubiyán and Kukiyán. (See Leipzig ed. 1869, iv. p. 316, and Barbier de Meynard, Dict. de la Perse, p. 498.) And it is also indicated by Mr. Abbott (J. R. G. S. XXV. 25) as the name of a district of Kermán, lying some distance to the east of his route when somewhat less than half-way between Yezd and Kermán. It would thus, I apprehend, be on or near the route between Kermán and Tabbas; one which I believe has been traced by no modern traveller. We may be certain that there is now no place at Kuh-Banán deserving the title of une cité grant, nor is it easy to believe that there was in Polo's time; he applies such terms too profusely. The meaning of the name is perhaps "Hill of the Terebinths, or Wild Pistachioes," "a tree which grows abundantly in the recesses of bleak, stony, and desert mountains, e.g. about Shamákhi, about Shiraz, and in the deserts of Luristan and Lar." (Kämpfer, 409, 413.)
["It is strange that Marco Polo speaks of Kúbenán only on his return journey from Kermán; on the down journey he must have been told that Kúbenán was in close proximity; it is even probable that he passed there, as Persian travellers of those times, when going from Kermán to Yazd, and vice versá, always called at Kúbenán." (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. p. 490.) In all histories this name is written Kúbenán, not Kúhbenán; the pronunciation to-day is Kóbenán and Kobenún.—H. C.]
I had thought my identification of Cobinan original, but a communication from Mr. Abbott, and the opportunity which this procured me of seeing his MS. Report already referred to, showed that he had anticipated me many years ago. The following is an extract: "Districts of Kerman * * * Kooh Benan. This is a hilly district abounding in fruits, such as grapes, peaches, pomegranates, sinjid (sweet-willow), walnuts, melons. A great deal of madder and some asafoetida is produced there. This is no doubt the country alluded to by Marco Polo, under the name of Cobinam, as producing iron, brass, and tutty, and which is still said to produce iron, copper, and tootea." There appear to be lead mines also in the district, as well as asbestos and sulphur. Mr. Abbott adds the names of nine villages, which he was not able to verify by comparison. These are Púz, Tarz, Gújard, Aspaj, Kuh-i-Gabr, Dahnah, Búghín, Bassab, Radk. The position of Kuh Banán is stated to lie between Bahabád (a place also mentioned by Yákút as producing Tutia) and Ráví, but this does not help us, and for approximate position we can only fall back on the note in Mr. Abbott's field-book, as published in the J. R. G. S., viz. that the District lay in the mountains E.S.E. from a caravanserai 10 miles S.E. of Gudran. To get the seven marches of Polo's Itinerary we must carry the Town of Kuh Banán as far north as this indication can possibly admit, for Abbott made only five and a half marches from the spot where this observation was made to Kermán. Perhaps Polo's route deviated for the sake of the fresh water. That a district, such as Mr. Abbott's Report speaks of, should lie unnoticed, in a tract which our maps represent as part of the Great Desert, shows again how very defective our geography of Persia still is.
["During the next stage to Darband, we passed ruins that I believe to be those of Marco Polo's 'Cobinan' as the modern Kúhbenán does not at all fit in with the great traveller's description, and it is just as well to remember that in the East the caravan routes seldom change." (Captain P. M. Sykes, Geog. Jour. X. p. 580.—See Persia, ch. xxiii.)
Kuh Banán has been visited by Mr. E. Stack, of the Indian Civil Service. (Six Months in Persia, London, 1882, I. 230.)—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—Tutty (i.e. Tutia) is in modern English an impure oxide of zinc, collected from the flues where brass is made; and this appears to be precisely what Polo describes, unless it be that in his account the production of tutia from an ore of zinc is represented as the object and not an accident of the process. What he says reads almost like a condensed translation of Galen's account of Pompholyx and Spodos: "Pompholyx is produced in copper-smelting as Cadmia is; and it is also produced from Cadmia (carbonate of zinc) when put in the furnace, as is done (for instance) in Cyprus. The master of the works there, having no copper ready for smelting, ordered some pompholyx to be prepared from cadmia in my presence. Small pieces of cadmia were thrown into the fire in front of the copper-blast. The furnace top was covered, with no vent at the crown, and intercepted the soot of the roasted cadmia. This, when collected, constitutes Pompholyx, whilst that which falls on the hearth is called Spodos, a great deal of which is got in copper-smelting." Pompholyx, he adds, is an ingredient in salves for eye discharges and pustules. (Galen, De Simpl. Medic., p. ix. in Latin ed., Venice, 1576.) Matthioli, after quoting this, says that Pompholyx was commonly known in the laboratories by the Arabic name of Tutia. I see that pure oxide of zinc is stated to form in modern practice a valuable eye-ointment.
Teixeira speaks of tutia as found only in Kermán, in a range of mountains twelve parasangs from the capital. The ore got here was kneaded with water, and set to bake in crucibles in a potter's kiln. When well baked, the crucibles were lifted and emptied, and the tutia carried in boxes to Hormuz for sale. This corresponds with a modern account in Milburne, which says that the tutia imported to India from the Gulf is made from an argillaceous ore of zinc, which is moulded into tubular cakes, and baked to a moderate hardness. The accurate Garcia da Horta is wrong for once in saying that the tutia of Kermán is no mineral, but the ash of a certain tree called Goan.
(Matth. on Dioscorides, Ven. 1565, pp. 1338-40; Teixeira, Relacion de Persia, p. 121; Milburne's Or. Commerce, I. 139; Garcia, f. 21 v.; Eng. Cyc., art. Zinc.)
[General A. Houtum-Schindler (Jour. R. As. Soc. N.S. XIII. October, 1881, p. 497) says: "The name Tútíá for collyrium is now not used in Kermán. Tútíá, when the name stands alone, is sulphate of copper, which in other parts of Persia is known as Kát-i-Kebúd; Tútíá-i-sabz (green Tútíá) is sulphate of iron, also called Záj-i-síyah. A piece of Tútíá-i-zard (yellow Tútíá) shown to me was alum, generally called Záj-i-safíd; and a piece of Tútíá-í-safíd (white Tútíá) seemed to be an argillaceous zinc ore. Either of these may have been the earth mentioned by Marco Polo as being put into the furnace. The lampblack used as collyrium is always called Surmah. This at Kermán itself is the soot produced by the flame of wicks, steeped in castor oil or goat's fat, upon earthenware saucers. In the high mountainous districts of the province, Kúbenán, Páríz, and others, Surmah is the soot of the Gavan plant (Garcia's goan). This plant, a species of Astragalus, is on those mountains very fat and succulent; from it also exudes the Tragacanth gum. The soot is used dry as an eye-powder, or, mixed with tallow, as an eye-salve. It is occasionally collected on iron gratings.
"Tútíá is the Arabicised word dúdhá, Persian for smokes.
"The Shems-ul-loghát calls Tútíá a medicine for eyes, and a stone used for the fabrication of Surmah. The Tohfeh says Tútíá is of three kinds—yellow and blue mineral Tútíá, Tútíá-i-qalam (collyrium) made from roots, and Tútíá resulting from the process of smelting copper ore. 'The best Tútíá-i-qalam comes from Kermán.' It adds, 'Some authors say Surmah is sulphuret of antimony, others say it is a composition of iron'; I should say any black composition used for the eyes is Surmah, be it lampblack, antimony, iron, or a mixture of all.
"Teixeira's Tútíá was an impure oxide of zinc, perhaps the above-mentioned Tútíá-i-safíd, baked into cakes; it was probably the East India Company's Lapis Tútíá, also called Tutty. The Company's Tutenague and Tutenage, occasionally confounded with Tutty, was the so-called 'Chinese Copper,' an alloy of copper, zinc, and iron, brought from China."
Major Sykes (ch. xxiii.) writes: "I translated Marco's description of tutia (which is also the modern Persian name), to a khán of Kubenán, and he assured me that the process was the same to-day; spodium he knew nothing about, but the sulphate of zinc is found in the hills to the east of Kubenán."
Heyd (Com. II. p. 675) says in a note: "Il résulte de l'ensemble de ce passage que les matières désignées par Marco Polo sous le nom de 'espodie' (spodium) étaient des scories métalliques; en général, le mot spodium désigne les résidus de la combustion des matières végétales ou des os (de l'ivoire)."—H. C.]
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